Just curious...how many versions of Poser do YOU currently have loaded onto your computer? And Why?

I've got Propack, Poser5, and Poser6 all loaded onto my computer...primarily because I do animation work and Propack is still the fastest of them all. I use Poser5 whenever I need dynamic cloth/hair in an animation where the background is still because I get wierd image artifacts sometimes when I try to move the camera during an animation with Poser5 (But it's still slightly faster than Poser6). Finally, I use Poser6 to render scenes where there are dynamics involved, and the camera must also move throughout a scene - this option often takes a ridiculous amount of time - even when I use the Poser4 rendering engine - so I rarely render animations with Poser6.

Seeing as how each new version of Poser seems to be slower than the last, I just can't bring myself to give up old versions for newer versions...that's why I actually refuse to buy Poser7...it would just take up more space on my hard drive while I use Propack more than anything. I'm just curious how many others are in the same, or a similar boat when it comes to using multiple versions of the same program?

Thanks so much!

Poser 6. I had 5 but I gave it to my daughter

I am down to just P7 now. I did have 5,6 and 7 all installed.

Only P7 SR1, works very well for me.  Speed of rendering, speed of camera movement, quality of preview are all tremendously faster than P6 is/was on the same hardware.  If you have a 1-core processor, you may not get as much advantage from P7, but if you have a dual core or other form of multiple processor (I have a quad core processor e.g.) you can benefit tremendously.

6 and 7, I'll eventually use just 7 and dump 6 but only when it plays right by itself and with Vue6Inf.

5, 6, & 7 - no SR1 yet.  I keep these three for product testing.

Poser 6 only. I used to have more version installed, but never used them. If I want speed I just render with P4 render engine in P6. I haven't noticed a speed difference between P5&P6 at all, so for me no need to keep older version at all. Just a waste of space and time loss due to switching back and forth between version.

I'm still on P6, I still don't see the added value of P7 at all. I'm still not convinced that I want to spent $129 on some minor updates I may never use. Most of my work is still rendered with the P4 rendering engine, so most of the new improvements are of no use to me. Also I'm able to render scenes with 20 figures or more in P6 already. So for now, I'll stick to P6.

Poser 6 and 7 - but I go back to Poser 6 - Poser 7 has too many bugs.
Poser in Version 7.0 have 150 bugs - SR1 clear up the version 7.0 bugs and come with 200 new bugs.

at the moment I am exploring the new features of Poser5 - but most work I am still doing with Poser4.
Poser5 renders with Poser4 engine nearly as fast as Poser4. With firefly-traytracing option and production quality it takes approx. 5 to 7x the time.

Just 4. 

Poser 4 and 5 mostly just for testing these days.  I suspect Poser 5's days are numbered, though.

 Poser 6 is mostly what I work in, actually have 3 copies on two computers (I have to totally clean out a copy of Poser when I test a new product, to make sure no files are missing from the Zip, one copy is just for that). 

I don't use Poser 7 much yet, but it is on two computers, too.   I haven't had any trouble with it at all, though. 

ProPack is gone, though.

Poser 5 SR4, Poser 6 SR3 and Poser 7 SR1. I mostly use 6, but I'm shifting to 7 because of its more user friendly library handling.
I keep 5 for testing my freebies.

Poser 4 ,ProPack 4 for testing and  Poser 6 and Poser 7

Sharen

4 through 7SR1

I'm lazy :)

5 and 6; one on each current machine (have 4 loaded on an OS9 boot somewhere but have given up on it). I used 5 for several reasons; to ensure P5 compatibility of what I build, because it creates a slightly simpler cr2 and has a smaller footprint, and because it will run on the old laptop. (Actually, only reason I even HAVE P6 is because P5 is incompatible with OS 10.4) What happens when I add P7 to the mix, I don't yet know.

Why would you need more than one version installed?

I only have Poser 6 installed. Poser 5 is sitting unused on a CD.

Like I said, I keep the three installed for testing ... not only my own products, but for other vendors as well.

Yeah, some people keep the different versions installed in order to make versions of their products compatible with different versions of Poser

P6 & P7.

I had P5 installed (for testing things that seem to not work quite right in P6), but I uninstalled that when I got P7 as I almost never opened P5 anymore.

And right now I'm likely to use either P6 or P7, though I favor P7 for the faster rendering.

I had p4 and p5 on...now I am down to p5 because it runs better on my laptop >:}

6 & 7 at the moment, the kids have 5SR3 on their machine, once I remove 6 they'll have that too.

4, 5 and 6. 

A combination of P4, UV Mapper and Phi Builder is the quickest and most accurate way to create rigged characters for Poser, imho. In P4 I can move an object around with Joint Editor turned on, making accurate fall-off's easier to get right. I've never been able to move characters around when the Joint Editor is active in any other version of Poser. I doubt I'll upgrade Poser until we get better rigging options.

I have P3 on one of my PCs (I use 3 out of loyalty) and P6 on one of my Macs.  for a while there I had P1 on an Amiga.

PP, 6, 7 in active use.  Keeping 4.0 on a laptop for occasional testing. 
Mainly live in 6.

Quote - Yeah, some people keep the different versions installed in order to make versions of their products compatible with different versions of Poser

Bad me! I am not in the business end of Poser so I forgot that.  At least now I'm not thinking you are all weirdos for having more than one version of the same program on your computer,  hehe

3,4, and 5. And Daz Studio. But nowadays, I only use 5..;)

I have Poser 6 and DAZ Studio in the moment. I also had Poser 7 installed but after SR1  no one of my Posers worked anymore. (I heared that this probleme is with german XP only). I re-installed poser 6 again and it works. I also re-installed poser7 without SR1 again, but it still couldn´t read anymore. So I have uninstalled Poser7 till a better SR will come.

If a new version works well, I only have this installed. I think I don´t get back to an older version again.

I have both ProPack and Poser 6 installed
I deleted the content/runtime for Poser 6 and just link to ProPack’s runtime.

For my use (which is ..pose,.. slap a texture on…maybe some hair, then export out to other apps), ProPack is much simpler and faster to use.

Need Poser 6 because Vicky 4 and a couple python scripts like it better.

I have been using Pser for a yea and I am not the most computer techie kinda guy. I find it maddening that when I  bought "an update" to Poser 7, I ended up with two versions on my computer. What other software does that???

I have Poser 7 and 6. I use Poser six because I spent a long time organizing my library there. . . . I know you can somehow link the Poser 6 library into 7, but have not yet spent the time to do that.

With this hobby, file managment seems to become another full time hobby. I think that is my biggest concern. Fr Poser 8 - I wish everything would be intergrated. Itherwise, this is going to be out of control. Does the future mean we will all have multiple libraries all patched together and multiple versions? That is either lazy programming or bad planning.

PPP because that is the main Runtime I use. I never actually fire it up as it is OS9 Poser 6 because it is the most stable. Poser 7 as I am anxious to use it but even with SR1 am having some major deal breaker problems so I have been forced to fall back into using Poser 6. More about that problem in a new thread. Why? As above, I never take off the previous version until I am sure that the new version will fit into the pipeline without stuffing it up. Sad to say Poser 7, while having great features, is stuffing up my pipeline.

if i have files from poser 6 on my computer can i open them with poser 7?
lets say that my computer crashes and will lost all on my hard drive but i have all poser 6 files on cd. can i then instal poser 7 and open all the poser 6 files?
or would i lose something?

thanks

All Poser 4, 5 and 6 content works in Poser 7. 
All scenes created in Poser 4,5 and 6 work in Poser 7.

Some gotchas:

• the scenes reference figures, props, textures and geometries. Those must be present in one of the (external) runtimes that Poser 7 knows about. 
• some Poser 5 material nodes have a different implementation in Poser 6 and 7. For example, the Cell node has a Scale parameter in Poser 5, while it has separate xScale, yScale and zScale parameters in Poser 6 and 7. 
• some of the very old Poser 4 (not ProPack) scenes refer to .BUM files for bump maps (actually, they're normal maps). I'm not sure whether Poser 7 handles .BUM files correctly.

There's a lot that's not perfect in Poser. But they got their backwards compatibility right. It just plain works.

Poser 5,6,7 are still installed but i use more Poser 7 sr1,1

Poser 4, 5, 6 and 7 plus Daz Studio. Use mostly Poser 6 and 7 and moving toward using Poser 7 more.

I have P6 and P7 SR1.1 installed. I'm working in P7 now and keep P6 on "just in case". Once I'm comfortable P7 is stable, I'll delete P6 off my system.

I'm only actually using Poser 7, but Poser 6 is installed so that Transposer will work with Carrara.

P4 & ProPack... and maybe P6 soon.

I have Poser 6 and 7 installed. 7 seems to have issues with Metaform's Weirdjuice plugin, so I run that in 6. Also, as I add new content, I add it to the Poser 6 runtime, which leaves Poser 7 in its initial state, which means it continues to load really quickly.

i read a lot on the forum that people have poser 6 to set up everything and poser 7 for rendering(its a lot faster).
now people also said htat there is no problem of having both programs on the same computer.
but i was wondering if having poser 6 and 7 could hurt windows?
its a dumb question but i instaled some time ago my new windows and it works fine and i dont want to damage anything.