I just upgraded to Poser 7. I have a 2.8 GhZ, with 2 GB RAM, running XP Media Center Edition.
When I tried to start Poser 7, it opens then freezes when it gets toi a brown screen with what looks like a running man. After about 15 minutes waiting for it to unfreeze I have to restart the computer because the end process command on the task manager down't work.
I have tried several times, and get this every time.
I've tried it both with and without ther new service release.

Did you try a clean install ? As the preview use OpenGL, are your graphic card drivers the latest ?

OK,  it appears that it was a conflict with the firewall that comes with AOL. When I disabled that, it started right up with no problem.

I did a quick test render of a somewhat complex scene I previously built in Poser 6, and it rendered it in about the same amount of time as Poser 6 did, so P7 appears to be at least just as good as P6 if not better.

>>"OK,  it appears that it was a conflict with the firewall that comes with AOL. When I disabled that, it started right up with no problem."

I hope you have another internet firewall solution in place, wheatpenny; otherwise you'll very soon have much more serious problems...

Disabling the firewall is a source of much and lasting fun, yep...
Better get you a different one asap. One that allows you to assign rules based on applications.

I also have Norton internet security, so I could afford to turn off the aol one.