Can anyone offer definitive solutions to this now? I have read a variety of things about this. . . but I do not see a definitive answer.

I have such a hard time moving around I just feel like tossing this hobby all together. Clicking from one thing to another takes for ever. It is so frustrating.

I am on a one year old computer that is set up as a gaming computer - so it is supervcharged for graphics. I think it is Vista. . . 

Any ideas?  Moderator, I think it would be great to post a pinned message with recommendations about this. 

Thanks - Tim

If you can, roll back to Windows XP if you do have Vista installed.

When you start your comp, does your login screen say Windows Vista?  Or does it say Windows XP?

Vista is extremely unstable right now and should be avoided like the plague for at least 6 months unless you feel like being an unpaid beta tester for the OS.  It wasn't ready for the roll-out and, while it has some nifty features, it's buggy and doesn't support OpenGL fully, even on high-end vid cards.  The DRM is making things worse as people are reporting multiple permission dialog boxes opening to allow the programs to run.

Even my son, who works for Dell, just did a roll-back to XP Pro because Vista was shutting down randomly and for no reason.

As for me, it's going to be a while before I move to Vista.  My XP Pro works like a champ and I see no reason to change.  My Posers (5, 6 & 7) work fine, as does my Vue 6, my Bryce 6, my PS CS2 ... you get the idea.

It's the old adage ... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Same here...

Though if you wanna stick with Vista, you should make sure you have proper drivers (the latest if possible) for your display card. The drivers that come with Vista don't do OpenGL properly, you need new ones from nVIDIA or ATI to make it work.

This is probably going to be unpopular, but...
You can get a Win2k Pro install CD on ebay for $15.
As long as you don't have a Intel hyperthreading CPU, or a AMD-64 processor AND one of the 2 or 3 applications that are actually 64-bit optimized, your computer will be about as zippy as it is possible to be.

So far, almost everything I've heard about Vista is negative. Sorting through all the posts I've read on several boards, it seems at this point that Vista is only really useful to users who don't expect much from their pc's other than the most basic functions. Resource intensive programs perform poorly, when they work at all. Perhaps a future barrage of service packs may solve the problems, but that's going to take a while. If the past is any reliable indication, we may be talking years.

Please lets stop the bashing, I’m running Vista and it WORKS!! Running it on two systems one of my desktops the system i run Poser, Bryce, Vue, cinema4d, lightwave, and carrara on, 

I've run poser rendering, while surfing the web, running outlook (full) checking my voicemail and fax (they come thru my outlook,) remotely accessing  5 servers and remotely fixing a  user computer  (fixing an issue on their system - because – their  brother said this program was neat stuff,  AT THE SAME TIME switching between windows to the different apps.  Also running it on one of my tablet pc's (which is not "rated" for vista).

I’m an IT Pro, a Director of Information Technology for a international corporation, and in my 20 plus years - started with CPM does anyone remember CPM - I find 80+ percent of the time, either some nifty cycle sucking internet download is the bad boy, or the drives have not been updated. Video plays a LARGE part with these graphic apps, always has.

OPENGL see the following......

August 2006 This week the Khronos group, which is responsible for developing and maintaining OpenGL, has released a report indicating that OpenGL support will now be natively supported in Vista without layering over Direct3D. Using standard Windows installable client driver (ICD), OpenGL will be fully accelerated and be fully compatible with Windows Vista's Aeroglass UI. In fact, Khronos says that by the time Windows Vista ships, Aeroglass performance on OpenGL will be superior to that of Direct3D. According to Khronos and NVIDIA:

OpenGL work for me, but then again i'n running a NVIDIA Quadro FX 4400, street price 1900 
Running on a Dell Desktop too.

Ok stepping down from the soap box...

ceba, vista runs the way it's supposd to for me as well; i've got a HP DV8230 laptop with a dual core & Nvidia GO 7300 video with 512MB memory, with 1 gig of system ram.
I deleted it after trying it though, because there is no flipping point in having a operating system that takes up over half of a good systems resources just to run, and has DRM so strict that I couldn't play even some of my own rendered animations (still sort of in awe on that one). it went off my laptop, and windows media center 2005 went back on.
There is a laundry list of reasons why Vista is a step in the wrong direction from a consumer point of view; for Poser enthusiasts, I guess the point would be this: you know those long render times you get with Win2k, even longer ones with XP? well, they will be longer than ever with Vista, given the same computer hardware is used as a base for comparison. The less well equiped your computer, the looooonger it will take to do anything.
Given a computer with 64MB of ram, a 500mhz processor, and a 2mb video card, you can run Win2k pro and Poser 6. it will not be the zippiest thing in the world, but you could do it. VISTA requires, at a MINIMUM, a 1ghz processor, a 32MB video card, and 512MB of system memory.
I pass the soapbox back to ceba...

Well, it's nice to have a ~$2000 graphics card - all those who can afford that raise your hands (two or three out of tens of thousands).  That's not a very good general probability curve now is it?

One thing that I learned and learned well - STAY AWAY FROM M$ GRAPHIC DRIVERS FOREVER!!!!  How can I stress that more without using a 1000 pt font?  Yeah, you'll need the default one for VGA when upgrading drivers - that's about as far as it should ever go.  Any time, ever, that I've said 'Well, it's Microsoft validated therefore it must be better than the ones from the manufacturer' it was disaster, torture, catastrophe.  For NVidia, I use NVidia drivers from NVidia - period.  Whenever the driver selection popped up - use the M$ driver, it's better, newer, faster, guaranteed to work with Winduhs (try this kid, you'll feel gooooood) - I promptly click Cancel as fast as I can.  From what I've heard, that's the way to go with Vista (and has been the same on 98, 2000, XP).  Microsoft "Certified" Drivers are the quickest way to certifiable...

I suspect that for the time-being, Vista will be heaven for some users and hell for a greater percentage.  I'll stick with XP Pro and XP Pro x64 until the DRM is forced into the corner and performance can outpace what is currently experienced - thank ya very much, huh (pelvic thrust intentional). ;)  I didn't like when the RIAA had Napster ban me for having legal copies of Metallica CDs on my computer, wouldn't have like to install Sony's Rootkit, and will not be bullied into pulp - for my protection - by a Draconian DRM policy in my OS (fade to Pres. Bush - fear the terrorists, fear the terrorists, oh yeah, but act normally - while fearing the terrorists - we're protectin' ya by reading your email, recording your phone calls, racially profilin', checkin' ya out, and puttin' ya in prisons outta jury's prudence so that we can torture ya, yeah, that's the ticket).  One has to wonder who has more rights - corporate bloat greed or individuals.  You make the call.

Quote - I've run poser rendering, while surfing the web, running outlook (full) checking my voicemail and fax (they come thru my outlook,) remotely accessing  5 servers and remotely fixing a  user computer ....

And how many years will take to finish the rendering?

Quote - Vista will be heaven for some users

It only depend on the personal definition of what is Heaven.
My computer is fast (don't use XP), I turn my computer on, light my cigarrette and the computer is ready to work.
I always use to complain about XP that is very slow (in its normal state), one day a friend of mine that has XP told me that his computer is very fast using XP, OK fine.
One day I when was in his home, he turned on his computer then went to take a bath, after some time he returned and then went to the kitchen to prepare some lanch. Again after some time he returned to the computer and the computer was just finishing to load Windows.
I reached the conclussion that what is fast for him is not the same as is for me.....
And this was before Vista times.

I know that stuff works on XP, but you could have a go with VISTA, doesnt take long and it might be worse the shot
HERE

Don't have Vista yet, nor poser 7 (okay so i'm behind the times? ROFL), however, I'm avoiding both, at least, for the time being.  I havent used either, though i've seen the good and bad of both splattered across boards from here to kingdom come.

The one thing that does make me hesitant, seriously, is my not-so-fond memories of Windows ME.   Yup, after less than a week, rolled back to WINDOWS 98!!    Since everything I currently have is working for me, i'm sticking with it lol.

Wow!..thanks for the info. That Poser is not good in Vista. I do have my copy of windows Vista, but not installed yet. Will install in the end of the year or better yet, will work on a new system. Now that I have my copy, that I will not have to go out and spend huge dollars later on. But this is great heads up on the situation. I really do not know if EF will work on patches (fixes, updates) for us poser users.

It's not so much that eF needs to work on patches for Vista, but that Microsoft needs to work on service packs for Vista.  It's really buggy and, IMO, should never have been released like this.  It doesn't support OpenGL fully and has so many DRM windows as to make it unusable on my system.  I tried it on my laptop and couldn't do anything without a popup asking for permission to use.  I'm glad I didn't put it on my desktop which is where a majority of my 3D work is done and I don't plan on doing so for a long while.

I won't be upgrading to Vista until there's sufficient need.  Right now, I have no Vista-only software, and Nvidia's initial driver support is somewhat hit-or-miss.

Heck, I didn't even upgrade to Win95 until December '97 ....

Quote - ... It doesn't support OpenGL fully ...

Neither has any previous version of Windows...MS have always (for the sake of argument) relied on the OpenGL drivers from the GPU manufacturers that include the OpenGL API within the card driver install.
I won't be upgrading to Vista for another year...for anything but testing it would be unwise to, for mission critical output, but I do see a an awful lot of people spurting out hear say blurb, without doing full research before they do...bad practice IMHO!

Oh and please, give the DRM a break...HEY! Apple use it  with iTunes, so bash the media producers for insisting on DRM rather than those that have to implement it so you will be able to run your MP3's on your iPod, or your HD DVD or Blu-Ray on your computer. Yet again, a lot spouted, but very little research done to gain a fair opinion.
Ok, have Vista without DRM...but then we will hear people complain that they can't play any multimedia content...which funnily enough, would probably be the same people who would be up in arms about copyright theft of 3D meshes,images etc!

Well, I'm sorry DRM technology is only protecting the same copyright laws that we as artsits embrace to protect our intillectual property!

Cheers

Quote -
Oh and please, give the DRM a break...HEY! Apple use it  with iTunes, so bash the media producers for insisting on DRM rather than those that have to implement it so you will be able to run your MP3's on your iPod, or your HD DVD or Blu-Ray on your computer. Yet again, a lot spouted, but very little research done to gain a fair opinion.
Ok, have Vista without DRM...but then we will hear people complain that they can't play any multimedia content...which funnily enough, would probably be the same people who would be up in arms about copyright theft of 3D meshes,images etc!

Well, I'm sorry DRM technology is only protecting the same copyright laws that we as artsits embrace to protect our intillectual property!

I will NOT give DRM a break; it's freaking Evil, with a capital E.
I misquote the infamous "Those who wish to control your access to knowledge, secretly dream themselves your master"
The problem is with Microsoft DRM; the iTunes DRM is sort of not very bad.
From TheRegister: "Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual....With the introduction of tilt bits, all (of this) designed-in resilience is gone. Every little (normally unnoticeable) glitch is suddenly surfaced because it could be a sign of a hack attack. The effect that this will have on system reliability should require no further explanation"
From a cost analysis of Vista: "...Since the S/PDIF link to your amplifier/speakers is regarded as insecure for playing the SA content, Vista disables it..." "...component (YPbPr) video will be disabled by Vista's content protection, so the same applies to a high-end video setup..."  "..If you rip your own CDs, WMP11 will take your rights away too. If the 'Copy protect music' option is turned on, well, I can't top their 1984 wording. "If the file is a song you ripped from a CD with the Copy protect music option turned on, you might be able to restore your usage rights by playing the file. You will be prompted to connect to a Microsoft Web page that explains how to restore your rights a limited number of times." (Note: this applies to Windows Media Player 11, which is a "critical update" for WindowsXP) "
Other quotes: "...Vista machines won't be able to play next-generation, high-definition DVDs in their full, high-resolution glory unless they're equipped with monitors that support a new DRM scheme called High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection, or HDCP...." "thanks to the removal of hardware accelerated 3D sound in Vista, Creative's popular DirectSound based EAX no longer works at all..."
Google it. use Vista, DRM, TPM & NSA as keywords. If you have any money invested in doing anything outside of just surfing the web, if you need to do anything that isn't based on the applications bundled with Vista, you are MOST LIKELY going to have problems.

I installed Vista Ultimate 64 and I just can't get Poser working reliably on it.  

Once you get it running it seems to work well, but I restart my computer and it immediately says ***'This application has failed to start because FreeImage_Win32Release.dll was not found.  Re-installing the application may fix this problem.'

If I just copy the file over it stays the same however I re-install and it works fine.  Turn the computer off and the same message appears :(

I know it is something to do with administrative privs but I 'run the program as an administrator' each time

Oh and it wouldn't even install Vista with my dual nVidia 7800 gtx cards in.  As soon as I removed (well, not actually me, but I saw to it that it was removed ;) ) one card it was okay.  Now with everything installed and latest drivers from nvidia if the card is put back in the computer (4800+ with 4 gb ram and 4 x 300 gb hd's) it won't start again.  Even my two WD My Book Platinum II 1 terabyte external drives won't work with it.  So on the whole I haven't had a great experience with it.

Oh... I did get Vue 6 Infinite 64 bit working and it runs very fast, so I am sure eventually it will all be okay.

I have another copy of vista ultimate 64 for my dual opteron workstation but I think I will hold off for the time being  ;)

Okay edit 10 minutes later :)

Okay you can get around this by installing poser 7 and then go to the Poser icon and right click.  Select the compatability tab and put a tick in the box of 'run as administrator'.   I expect everyone except me knew this anyway! 

Hey cheers, I had my first taste of iTunes DRM the other day & it stinks, I bought a downlaod of a brand new album & had to spend an hour finding a way to kill the DRM just so I can put the damn files on my mp3 player & have them work, sorry dude but microsoft can stick their DRM infested piece of junk right where the sun don't shine.

Quote - I do see a an awful lot of people spurting out hear say blurb, without doing full research before they do...bad practice IMHO!

I'm going to say this just once more ... my son is an IT specialist with Dell computers so we got our Vista directly from Dell (and not the OEM versions, either.)  We installed Vista on 4 of the 5 computers in the house to give it a good trial with all the different configurations we have, along with the different usages we have.  The only computer we didn't install on is my desktop where I do most of my 3D work, along with my job, since I work in Technical Support for Cox Communications and can't have a buggy OS.

None of the computers performed apropriately with Vista installed.  On my laptop, the DRM didn't let me open anything without clicking ok.  That is totally unacceptable.  And before you get on me about DRM with iTunes, I don't use that either, for the same reason.  I couldn't even load my mp3 player from my laptop because it said my CD's are copy protected and, therefore, Vista would not load the mp3 player.

I understand about security risks but, puh-lease!  I've been running computers for 25 years now and know more than the average bear!  What I would like to see is an OS that will let you set your level of competency and not assume I'm a total noobee.  I know how to work my computer and I know an awful lot about the internet.  I run a high-end firewall (not the Windows one) and, in the four years I've used it have NEVER had a virus or been hacked.

I will not be moving to Vista until it's ready and, IMHO, that won't be for at least a year.  I was lucky, I had a clean backup of my laptop available on one of my external hard drives so it wasn't such a big deal rolling back.  Not a lot of people do that, in our house it's a matter of course.

So, if you like Vista, good on ya ... but don't go rattling on about how we're all making assumptions without doing research.  It just ain't so.

iTunes does indeed have a DRM - but only IN ITS OWN FORMAT (!!!).  You have the option to, for instance, rip your Audio CDs to MP3 format and there will be no DRM.  All songs/videos purchased from iTunes, of course, are in iTunes format (M4P or M4V) and have the DRM included therein. (since Victoria_Lee doesn't use iTunes, filling in the info).

That said, I can't see how iTunes DRM is in anyway similar to Vista's.  iTunes doesn't pop up a dialog every time you play a song asking you if it is Okay to play that song, do you have privileges, or are you the administrator.

Vista sounds like a paradise for schizophrenic paranoids... ;)

Quote -

Vista sounds like a paradise for schizophrenic paranoids... ;)

My sentiments exactly!!!  :m_thumbd:

Kuro I should have said my purchase through iTunes was indeed in their format m4p, but the performance I had to go through to get something usable was enough to put me off ever using it again or anything else that has DRM so fully ingrained into it.

"Go into your Render Settings, and under the Preview tab turn the Display Engine from OpenGL to SreeD."

FYI - and update: I revcieved this advice and it changed everything for me. The program now works as it use to before Vista. 

Much of the technical conversation above is over my head. I started this thread, and just this one simple piece of advice was what I needed. 

There is one remaining inquiry: If OpenGL is a key piece of software to make the program work, how come e-Frontier did not work to assure that this was updated and compatible? It seems it would have avoided lots of issues for lots of us - and particularily people like me who are not computer professionals. 

Quote - If OpenGL is a key piece of software to make the program work, how come e-Frontier did not work to assure that this was updated and compatible?

And why companies must run and fix the mess that Microsoft did?
If OpenGL is not working in Vista is a problem that Microsoft must fix and not E-Frontier,
If Microsoft decides that OpenGL will not be allowed in Vista do we must abondon OpenGL and dance Microsoft's music?

Why should Microsoft write the drivers? nVidia knows better how their hardware works, so does ATI. Like in all previous Windows versions, good OpenGL is provided by the hardware vendors. Linux is no different - if you want to have good graphics performance, you need the driver provided by the hardware vendor.
MS provides an OpenGL 1.1 emulator - which sucks, agreed. Far too slow to be usable.
Just wait for the nVidia native drivers and the problem will be solved. (Don't wait for good ATI OpenGL drivers - those only exist for the very expensive FireGL series. ATI has a deservedly abysmal reputation when it comes to OpenGL on consumer cards).

I concur about ATI and OpenGL.  Dealing with it as I type - Cinema 4D R10 on Mac with ATI - very bad crashes that don't occur in 'Software Shading' (as compared to OpenGL Shading).

Quote - If OpenGL is a key piece of software to make the program work, how come e-Frontier did not work to assure that this was updated and compatible?

They did; OpenGL is a Standard, like VGA is a standard. the software is OpenGL compliant, it is Microsoft that isn't.
A further note: Matrox is famous for making video cards that work great with OpenGL. since they sort of suck at gaming, not many people use them anymore.
Is Poser 7 seriously working just as well as it did pre-vista? thats pretty impressive.

shrug I dunno... I have no use for Vista. Let's just sum it up this way: I'm currently a Sr. Sysadmin for a Fortune 50 company (yes, just the two digits). I play with all kinds of fun stuff there (e.g. I requisitioned and got an iSCSI 8 terabyte disk array in the space of less than three days - I'll be putting it into the network next week). One of those things involves the prospect of sticking Vista on a desktop when it arrives so that the team I care for can learn from the speed-bumps - they happen to do a LOT of graphics-related programming. At home, I have a 2-year-old Apple Dual G5 PowerMac, which will likely be replaced this summer with a dual Core Duo PowerMac if I can swing it. All of my personal PC's run Linux, and I'll be fscked if Windows ever gets installed on any of them. All that said, here's what you'll probably find w/ Vista and Poser: * If you're upgrading on a computer you currently own, good luck... it'll be hit-or-miss, mostly depending on whether you stuck the disk in and upgraded (bad idea), or reformatted the hard drive and installed Vista from scratch (if you're that set on Vista, then this is the least worst of your options. * If Vista came w/ a shiny new fairly-high-end computer, okay... it'll probably work for you after a couple of tweaks at the most, unless you make the dumb mistake of logging in as "Administrator", in which case everything will probably work just fine as far as Poser is concerned. After all, EF built the Windows version for XP, not Vista. If I were you, and you had the sufficient cash to do it, I'd go for a Mac and be done with the mess. Otherwise, you're probably better off sticking with XP for as long as it takes for EF to come up with a version of Poser that doesn't require admin-level permissions to run. Vista has nothing in the way of functionality or improvements that a 32-bit computer needs or wants (UAC isn't worth $200 or more, trust me). /P