I'm on Vista Home Premium too and those drop down menu crashes are random for me, it's worked fine ever since I had the problem with the Lola package, even the Lola textures are selecting via the drop down menu today. I also have the latest Nvidia drivers, I had them installed before I got Poser 8 though so it's not them. If a scene runs ok in Poser 7 then it should run in Poser 8.

I just tried out the cloth room tonight, whoo hoo it's a step up from what I'm used to in Poser 7 :) Very fast and smooth running, I'll be using that more often!