I went to e-on and they are saying to change Poser.exe to Poser.exe but I don't have Poser.exe!!!! I have ME running and none of my programs show a .exe extention they just show the name of the program and an icon beside it even when I click view/details. I did a search for Poser.exe and it points to the same Poser application file with the icon. I'm afraid of messing something up if I try changing it to Poser.exe! Does anyone else here have ME running and did you rename the Poser application file to Poser.exe? Were you able to get it to show Poser.exe instead of just Poser and an icon? Can you now import pz3s? Sorry for such a dumb question... Dawn

If you have Poser, you have Poser.exe - it's the Poser program itself. Which is why you shouldn't fiddle with it. Could e-on have been referring to the level of your Poser program (4.1, 4.2, service releases...)? And Sharen - I'm thinking seriously of acquiring Vue 4 (I'm on 3), so I'd love any "review" of the PZ3 import feature. Thanx in advance.

When you first try importing a Poser PZ3 file for the very first time in Vue 4, it asks you to locate "poser.exe", for future reference, so Vue always knows where it is. I don't know what it's utilizing from Poser, whether it needs poser.exe for something, or if it's just a security thing, so people who don't have Poser can't just download a Poser scene file and use it in Vue. Anyway, evidently there have been a few times where Vue 4 has failed to "recognize" poser.exe, and E-on , on their website in the FAQ, has suggested that if it happens, to rename poser.exe with the same name, "poser.exe". Strange, huh? But evidently it works. Dawn, make a copy of your Poser.exe file from yopur Poser folder and stick it in a folder somewhere else, for safe keeping, and then, right click on the Poser.exe file in your Poser directory and select rename from the options that pop up, then clear the name box, and type in "poser.exe", without the quotation marks, and press enter and you should be good to go. :)

Dawn, do what MikeJ says, he has a lot of knowledge with Vue and I am sure he wouldn't steer you wrong. Sharen:-)

hmmm... dumb suggestion :) Dawn, it might be wise to check if you can see any extension at all. If you windows ME has file extensions hidden, you could end up renaming your application 'poser.exe.exe'. To turn file extensions on, go into 'file explorer -> tools -> folder options -> view'

Hi Dawn, It is as Agiel says. Your windows ME is configured to NOT show the file extentions. The filename of the program is not really poser, but poser.exe. But windows is instructed to not show the .exe extention. If you have a problem with importing Poser pz3 files, i.e. that Vue 4 keeps asking you where poser.exe is located (in your case you must select poser) and doesn't start with the import, then you need to rename poser. This will solve the problem of Vue keeping asking for poser. There are now two options. Deselect the option of 'don't show extentions' and then rename poser.exe (because then the extention will be shown) to poser.exe or rename poser to poser (but I am not sure what happens then. Maybe Windows will rename it to something without extention, if that is the case, rename it to poser.exe). There is not much what can go wrong, but make a copy of the file first, just to be sure. (sorry for the long explanation, but english not my native language and I try to be as clear as possible in the case). Bye, Angelo

Yep....turn on file extensions. Then your Poser with an icon will be Poser.exe with an icon :) Laurie

I don't know about WinME, but in Win98 (probably the same), you'd lauch Windows Explorer then click on View in the menu bar. At the bottom of the View menu is Folder Options, click that. When the Folder Options dialog box opens, click the View tab at the top of the box. The 5th or 6th option down is a check box that says "Hide file extensions for known file types." Uncheck that box and click the OK button. You should now be able to see all your file extensions. Why Mickeysoft desided to hide file extensions as a default is beyond me. Guess they didn't want to confuse all us stoopid users.

YUeah, I have to say I wasn't even aware of the file extension thingydoodle in Win ME. For that matter, I wasn't aware of being able to show/hide them in Win 98. I always just assumed most programs were .EXE extensions. Some things seem to be unchangeable. For example, I made a new Windows shut down screeen, out of "logow.sys", from the Windows folder, but converting it to "logow.bmp", and then after mutilating it in Painter by adding a picture of good ol' Bill with some non-flattering text, tried to rename it to logow.sys, but I can't get it to drop the .bmp extension, and now all it wants to be is logow.sys.bmp, which doesn't work as a shut down screen, so without the original logow.sys file in the Windows folder, I simply get no shut down picture at all. shrug Anyhow, that's OT, and I hope this works for you, Dawn. :) -Mike

Mike: you shouldn't have that trouble renaming your file. Are you sure you're doing it right? If all else fails, you could drop to DOS (exit Windows completely), go to the directory containing the file and use the DOS 'ren' command: C:WINDOWS>ren logow.sys.bmp logow.sys(ENTER)

Thanks jackson, I'll give that a try. I had been asking this in the Hardware and Technical forum, and everyone said that with Windows Explorer, it should work, but it wasn't. I finally managed to lose the .bmp extension with a text editor, but then it wouldn't work still. Someone suggested maybe I have too much color depth in it. I'll try it your way and see what happens. Fortunately, of course, I have the original backed up. Thanks for the advice, I know little about DOS and wouldn't have thought to try that. -Mike

Mike, for your problem...go to ZDNet and download a program called Tweak Revisited. It will let you replace your logow.sys with whatever you want. It has to be a certain size and color depth tho, but Tweak Revisited should tell you what that is :). I can't remember offhand. Laurie

One very good, if not essential reason to show file extensions for known file types, is becuase a lot of viruses are named in a way to fool people who do not have file extensions showing. Fo example you may recieve an e-mail with a file attached showing that it is named "picture.jpeg", when infact the proper file name is "picture.jpeg.exe". Cheers

Very good point Martin!! I ALWAYS show file extentions myself :) Laurie

Thanks so much, maybe it wasn't such a dumb question after all :) Well it worked and imported after I renamed Poser.exe but right after the pz3 imported Vue crashed with an error in engine.dll, I guess I'll have to wait for the patch before trying to import pz3s :( Dawn

Just wanted to add that Vue asking for the location of poser.exe isn't odd at all. In the PZ3 files, all the locations of OBJs, CR2S, textures, etc., are based on Poser paths, mainly beginning with PoserRuntime. So all Vue wants to know is how to reach the paths for all the items within a PZ3. :) Dawn, an initial patch has been released. Not sure if it will cover your specific PZ3 import problem, but y'never know. :)

Thanks Laurie. :) Dawn, I hope the patch comes quickly for you, and works. Have you tried the one that Steve Bell from E-on told us to email him about today?

Mike: When you're in Windows, the operating environment won't let you modify certain aspects of certain files. That's why I advised for you to exit Windows completely. This may be moot now, but I need to clarify my earlier message: I'd forgotten that DOS only recognizes 8.3 filenames. So in true DOS your LOGOW.SYS.BMP file would appear as LOGOWS~1.BMP. So the DOS command would look like this: C:WINDOWS>ren logows~1.bmp logow.sys(enter). Also, I think the Windows startup and shut down screens are limited to 256 colors.

Yup 256 colors, and the dimensions are quite small, too, but I don't remember what they are offhand. In the process of getting all my stuff transfered to my new machine (yep, I'm still working on it!), I noticed that Poser's executable is named poser.exe (lowercase p). I think perhaps what E-on's tip means is to rename poser.exe to Poser.exe (lowercase to uppercase) Case doesn't matter to Windows, but it does matter to some programs, in this case, possibly Vue.