I've had enough.  Can someone please, please tell me if Poser can be forced to export the rendered image to a directory the user chooses, rather than reverting to the default Poser one each time the programme is run?

Not as such. Why not put a shortcut to your preferred location in Poser's default location? Then it's a just a click away.

Nope, we're stuck with saving to runtime/textures.  Earlier versions
remembered your choice of output location, but P7 introduced this
wonderful "feature" of always saving to runtime/textures.

Grrrrrrr....thanks guys.

well i save  my rendered images  to a different location with poser 7
go to file  export   image it will then open a dialouge box  that wants to save in textures  click on arrow where it says textures   and choose location you want to save PNG file  in
i do this  with every render  cause  poser dont remember  where to save  it   but  it  works

yup, what sa_raneth said.  Never did it the other way .  

If you have a standard location, this little script will render and save to your preferred
location in one click.  It gives each file a name like Render_02, automatically
incrementing so it won't overwrite. 

Note that the StandardPath must be filled in the script itself (fourth line), and it must
be written in the usual "programmer's style" with double backslashes.

To save TIF or PNG, just substitute "tif" or "png" for "bmp" in the next-to-last line.

import poser
import os
scene = poser.Scene()
StandardPath="c:downloads"  
if not os.path.exists(StandardPath): os.mkdir(StandardPath)
for N in range(0,100): # 100 should be enough
    TryName = os.path.join(StandardPath, ("Render_%.2d.bmp" % N))
    if not os.path.isfile(TryName):  # Doesn't exist. Save and stop.
        scene.Render()  # Delete this line if you want a save-only script
        scene.SaveImage("bmp",TryName)
        break