Quote -  Question ... did you attempt to try to install Service Pack 2 BEFORE or AFTER you installed Poser 8?

Also ... you mentioned that your content is installed in the Poser 7 runtime folder. You didn't happen to install Poser 8 content to the same library, did you? That might explain some of the bad behavior.

I tried installing Vista SP2 as soon as MS notified me to update, which was ages ago, and way before I acquired Poser 8. The service pack always failed at the same point after three attempts, so I gave up weeks ago. I can't manually reinstall the entire system as I don't have the discs, but my system is ghosted so I can wind back to factory install if absolutely neccessary. I have just notified SM of the issue with SP2, and I'm waiting for a response. I must admit it would be interesting to reinstall the system and software bit by bit, seeing which program or utility upsets P8. All my work documents and downloaded software are on separate hard drives.

I always install new software to default locations, so P7 runtime is in default e frontier location, and P8 is in default Smith Micro location. I then simply imported the P7 runtime to P8 library, following the instructions in the manual. It was no different from importing my (uninstalled) P5 runtime into my P7 library. I checked that the P7 and P8 libraries were in the correct locations immediately I first encountered problems with the P8 library.

This is getting interesting:)