After all of the uproar about the security patches etc. that were posted here I thought it would be nice to thank you on this forum, for deciding not to go that route and for listening to your client base. :-)

Ummmmmm I thought they did put security precautions into the new update didnt they?

I'm assuming she's talking about the future Poser 5 upgrade that's not out yet. There was a big uproar over security and limited installations from the CD ~ something like 3 installations and it locks you out; you'll have to get a key to install it again. People who reformat their drives on a regular basis will have major problems with that. There are too many variables, such as hard drive crashes or corrupted Poser file, where you have to reinstall. I'm assuming Curious Labs has realized they would lose sales because people will refuse to buy the upgrade if it has such restrictions on it. I, for one, will be happy to stay with Poser 4 if 5 has major security restrictions. To me, it shows Curious Labs doesn't trust their customers. If the security thing really is being removed, then I'll be glad to upgrade to 5, if the new additions are worth it. Melanie

There is an announcement about it at Curious Labs site.

I totally agree with you Melanie, I have seen so many reasons to re-install poser, crashes corruptions etc.,plus my wife and I have our own computers. If they put security restrictions on even the "c d", I for one will not want to purchase it. I am sure I will be ordering poser 5 ( without the block), but if it has that security feature, I most likely will not buy it.

So when can we see a preview of Poser 5?

That type of mentality has stopped me from getting XP - as I replace hard drives regularly (seems almost quarterly but maybe every 6 months) since software seems to bloat uncontrollably and registry fails more than any DBMS I ever ran.... Thank you for not putting that onto us legal owners of Poser.

Hmmm, Well, I seem to need to re-install my (Windows) OS every week, and then it looses the file associations, (provided it hasn't killed my data drive :) so I have to re-install poser... I'd also point out that no matter what protection you put on something, (even a dongle ala lightwave) somebody will crack the protection, and spread the crack, all this kind of thing does is annoy the hell out of people like us, the people who pay for it anyway. Glad to hear they've changed thier minds. later jb

It's because of Win XP and that mentality I just bought Redhat Linux 7.1 and will hopfully be using Wine to run Window programs in the near future. (It's been a while since I've tried Linux but I'm sick of Microsofts attitude.) Hats off to Curious labs for being amoung the good guys. :)

Yipee, it's good to know that we (legal customers) actually matter. I have never purchased any product that has used drastic security measures, and don't plan to in the future. I don't even like the one's that make you have the CD in to work and don't let you make copies of them. Unfortunatly I have a few of those.