I have not maintained the best organization of my archives... can anyone recommend a good software that can search though sub-directories for files and folder with names containing for instance "V3", "V4", "M3" and move them to a new sorted target directories? This would not fix by messy archives altogether but it would be a start. Vista gets really messed up if I try to search and move directories using explorer.

It's easy to make sub folders inside your main folders even in Vista.

make sure, as well as running in admin mode that you have given the right permissions on your Poser folders, this is very important.
Make your folder structure logical and just cut and paste to the new folders.

Example: Figures main folder. Sub folder called Clothing, sub folders in the sub folder called V3 clothing, V4 clothing, M3 clothing etc. etc. just keep it logical

My figures folder contains sub folders like Clothing, People, Props, Beasts, animals, buildings, weapons, vehicles and so on.
Some of these will also have additional sub folders but not all.
Navigation of sub folders is easy using the small black triangle..

Personally I prefer sub folders to multiple runtimes, I find them much easier, I found multiples a pain having to access the different ones all the time, the black arrow is so much easier IMVHO!

Here is a post I made about organization inside Poser.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2772613&page=1#message_3455072

I quickly learned that if you just unzip/install stuff to the one main runtime that you can't find anything because most files don't have a continuity with naming from library to library, and while their folder in the character folder might be called "abc", the texture folder in the pose folder could be called "big daddy" or something, LOL   How a user is ever to put that together and associate the 2 folders as being for the same package,  while they are working in the program is beyond me!

Anyway, organization is important if you want to find things related to an installed product.

The "texture" folder isn't important as the cr2 will point to the right place anyway, it has no bearing on organising your runtime.

Finding a folder in the texture folder is only ever important if you want to delete something and even then you can readily obtain the information from the cr2.

I have actually been good at sorting my installed Poser content. The issue is my archive of installers and zips. I would like to for instance pull all the V4 stuff out of the archives and put it in a new sub-folder, like wise V3 and M3 etc. If I search with Explorer and drag the files out into the new folder I experience crashes. I even scrambled a brand new external drive that way and it is so damage I can not reformat it. What I want to find is a safe software that can go through a directory looking for a certain thread in the file names and move those matching files to a new folder... then my V3 zips would be apart from my V4 zips etc. as I have not done in my 10 years of amsing Poser content. I just spent days searching for an old c.2000 prop of a mono tape recorder!

Ah so it's your archive zipped files you want to organise, not your actual runtime???

Well I'm absolutely NOT the one to ask, all my zip files are on DVD's in no particular order except maybe by the date that I burned the DVD.

They are there for extreme emergencies, I have my rig set up so that I should never have to use them, my pc is set at Raid 1 so that if one HD fails I don't lose anything and I have time to replace the failed one, in addition to that I do full back ups to XHD every Month.

I hope to never have to use the DVD's again ever, but you never know and if I do I'll be in a world of pain!! [LOL]

I create CD/DVD's with a twist.  Loaded on each one is an html file created in photoshop and modified in Frontpage (forget what it's called now by Microsoft)  The file(s) contain thumbnails of all the content with direct links to each zip and installer.  The disks contain  menu autoplays to further breakdown the categories by characters, clothing, textures, etc.  PITA to create but navigation is easy once you establish an organized system.