Quote - "I do not want to lose the ability to reset this computer in an emergency."

software can do it faster than a wall switch??

I had Acronis last Christmas, and it didn't work on my previous XP computer when the entire system crashed and refused to restart. Not even with the Acronis emergency disk. And why not, you might ask, because software is no protection when the motherboard dies. Well it was nine years old.

Trekkie, I'm not ignoring your comments, I just don't want to do anything I don't understand, particlarly anything that the factory put on here. You'll notice from bagginsbill's comments that I didn't know what 'move' meant. I've never used it to transfer files.

ah. we have a misunderstanding in the word Reset.

I thought you meant Reset as in Reset Switch.

you mean Reset as in Reload (to saved state)

 I didn't think you were ignoring me :)

Thing is, thos buttons are just that. Quick start buttons to the Acer Emnpowering Technology tasks. And they take up a lot of memory just sitting there. I couldn't understand why my CPU was always working overtime when I looked at the CPU meter I have in my Vista Gadgets (and yea yeah the side panel eats ressources, too.. but tis pwetty!)

And once I closed those buttons, the CPU usage dropped dramatically.

So.. while not the only culprit, it MAY have a lot to say in regards to your problems. And there's nothing dangerous in closing them. No more than in closing any other program on your compute r(well.. perhaps not Avast, I wouldn't recommend closing that L)

So in short. Right click on the green A thing and select close. And see if it helps. If there's no change, the buttons will be back when you reboot, so they're not like gone for good :)

Okay bagginsbill, I've followed your instructions, but something new has cropped up.

I've installed only the 'current' P8 content, to the runtime in my documents folder. I don't need the old stuff, it's in the P7 runtime.

On opening P8, the library had now dissapeared, and was replaced with a tiny message where the library should be, that I'd seen before, which is far too small to read. So this time I got a magnifying glass and it said something about "Flash, click here" so I did, and it asked me to download a recent update to the flash player. Though strangely I had already updated Flash Player yesterday! Anyway, I updated the player again.

The tiny message then dissapeared leaving a completely black area. So I restarted P8 and there was the library again, as a docked pallete in the top right corner. The library is working okay, and instantly indexed.

I exit P8, and everything else on the computer is ok. At this point nothing including P8 is running slow.

mackis, I like my MWSnap screenshot program, it is so versatile and pops up over anything.

I'm going to have to appear rude and ignore you, Trekkie, until bagginsbill tells me to do something. If it's any consolation, I think you may be right about resources, but I've got a feeling now that this problem is going to be found rooted in my P7 runtime. In fact it's looking like a safe bet I'm going to eventually have to erase the P7 runtime and reinstall all my content. This entire post could get highly embarassing for me!

 Not embarassing.. Whenever something doesn't work as it's supposed to, it's a trial and error thing to get it working. And sometimes things just start working on their own accord, apparently just to spite us L

when I worked in an office, it was common that if your computer went bonkers and you went to get the IT guy.. the moment he stepped into the office.. the problem went away as by magic. 

Most annoying, really because it made you seem like an idiot L

It may be something from your Poser 7 runtime. Good thing is you don't need to reinstall or anything. I assume you have your Poser 7 runtime safely tucked away on another disk? External, not a CD, although as long as it isn't zipped, it will actually work anyway.

Let's assume you have your old Poser 7 installation, runtime and all somewhere else on your computer. In Poser 8, simply run the Import Runtimes script and Poser 8 will see your Poser 7 runtime. No need to move anything. And you can have Poser 7 installed as well, in its own location. Poser coexists peacegfully with previous versions. I stil have both Poser 4, 5 , 6 and 7 installed along with Poser 8. Works fine :) They're in each their default location.

Hi guys,

Sorry I wasn't around last night. On the weekend I do more family stuff and little to no Poser stuff.

OK, zippy, so P8 is running fine and you have all your P8 content just fine, right?

So, we can safely say the thread title isn't right. ;-)

Now all we have left to do is hook up your other runtimes. This was why I earlier was so emphatic about not copying or moving runtimes into Poser 8, but just to attach or add them to Poser 8 as external runtime. I see by your response that you understand that, but I had to make sure. Since the whole thread was about a totally borked P8, I needed to make sure you weren't going to copy over it, since that is a common way to bork it up.

I would not add all your external runtimes yet.

I assume you understand how to add runtimes manually through the Poser 8 GUI, right? With the button that looks like a folder with a + and a running man in it. Click that, and add just the Poser 7 runtime - what used to be the main runtime for Poser 7.

Work with that for a while. If all is normal, then exit Poser, start it again, and work with that Poser 7 content some more. If you're comfortable that it is OK, then continue. Otherwise stop and report at any point where things appear to have become borked.

After that try a few more external runtimes. Then report back.

Do not do anything automatic yet, like adding all your runtimes with that script. I will go crazy deciphering what happened then.

In the end, I believe we're going to find nothing at all. I think in the past you had A) borked OS, then later B) borked P8 install.

Since we're doing everything slowly and correctly now, nothing is wrong.

Quote - It really is just too confusing for Me..  I quit, Smith Micro has My money and I have a lemon..
Am I allowed to call a product that is totally useless to Me a lemon..?
I will just continue using Poser pro and not say any more.  leave it to the experts.
Thank you all for not much at all..

You know, since you don't want any more help, I won't offer any, but  what in the world makes you think that just because you get a similar message, which frankly I don't believe, that the solution would be the same on your computer if you're using a completely different computer, and operating system?

Even if you were running the windows version of P8 on your imac, (although the logic of that escapes me), the cause and solution to your problems would most likely not be identical to that of the OP.

Poser 8 runs fine on my Mac. Yes there are a few bugs, but nothing like what you're experiencing.

Dont you think it is also confusing Me..  as well as any other people I am trying to get help from?

I have another  thread open now where there is some help..

Please understand.  All I have tried to do is get some help on a problem I am not coping with..

I Told you so:)

Okay, Bagginsbill
I've followed your instructions to the letter, and only loaded the P7 runtime, as that's the only other runtime I've ever had.
And now we are back at square one, because after 8 minutes of indexing the P7 runtime (yes it took a full 8 minutes just to index the characters folder) it is now firmly stuck a third of the way through the poses folder. I waited 10 mintes to see if the indexing would continue, which it didn't, so I closed P8. Note, the indexing was extremely slow.

Now my computer access to the start button menus is extremely slow again, more blank white menu windows, and it takes 20 seconds to access either the WinMail or Firefox windows, let alone link to the internet, which takes another several seconds. It's like wading through mud! And in case it may help, Internet Explorer is no faster at accessing the internet either.

No error messages have come up. The only message to appear was the notification that there is a P8 update available for download, which will be the Hotfix patch. And last time I installed that patch it made no difference either.

I quote -
"In the end, I believe we're going to find nothing at all. I think in the past you had A) borked OS, then later B) borked P8 install."

Well something's not right.

HOLD ON FOLKS!!!!!!!!!

I think I've found the solution to all this and I'm fixing it right now, because it seems to be working. Give me an hour to reinstall Poser 8. The problem is certainly Poser 7.

Oh God, this is so embarrassing.

I'm very curious.

When you say "8 minutes to index the characters folder" I have no certainty of what you mean. In computer parlance, "indexing" means to build an index, a data compendium allowing things to be located quickly without scanning and reading everything where the sought item might be.

Now it occurs to me that Poser 8 does indeed ask the OS to do indexing, and that indexing involves the Windows Indexing service, and that this service could continue to run after Poser exits while it asssembles an index for the entire Poser 7 runtime, which it did not attempt to do until you added it to Poser 8.

But I'm not sure how you'd know that "indexing" is happening.

The way you're using the word "indexing", I think you simply mean "loading", as in you're talking about how long it seems for the GUI to show you things from your runtime. Is that what you mean, the display of content from the runtime? Because that isn't indexing. That's simple reading. And it shouldn't be happening after you quit Poser.

I need to see the running processes, very badly. I do not know what is happening, but it is clear that adding the P7 runtime caused something to happen.

Right. I've only just got back up again. Something terrifying happened to me last night. I managed to get both Poser 7 and 8 running perfectly. The P8 library loaded the P7 runtime very quickly. And then while I'm writing up a report for this forum my hard drive starts chattering away and up pops that Windows message saying my security has failed. Something had shut down all my security, even the firewall, and no matter what I tried I couldn't get the security working again, so I disconected the net and the hard drive then stopped whiring. I tried rebooting only to then find the desktop in a mess and the Vista gadgets on the right looked all weird. That's never happened before.

With Poser 7 I accidentally, using search, found two hidden duplicate installations of the entire Poser 7 folder and runtime, but I have no idea how they got to be where they were. I wondered if I'd copied them, but I wouldn't have put them where they were, as a rule I only copy the runtime. When I deleted them the P8 library, and the rest of the computer started to work okay, until all hell broke loose. I'm guessing I've had a virus specific to Poser, but whatever it is I'm just sticking to version 7 from now on. Sorry, but I'm not risking any more crashes. I'm deep scanning my computer now for infections.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2782553&page=2#message_3526902

My hard Drive has been re formatted and OS 10.6.1 re installed.

Poser 8 is re-installed  8.0.0.10199

Every thing is great..  I thank everyone who helped..

I start by trying out loading different poses from My library  C.R.A.S.H.

So We al know this is an issue to be handled in SR1 ,  so I move on.

Restart Poser 8 ,  I try to render the default starting document,  about 25% complete when IT
C.R.A.S.H.E.S.

Don't know where to go from here..

I just thought I'd add that somebody here might wonder why, if I've got my computer working again, why should I no longer want to use Poser 8. Well, this is in my own opinion why not...

1. I do not, repeat, not, like the new Poser interface. It is very ugly, not to mention cramped, and the only way it can be used effectively wouold be on a monitor the size of Manhattan. P7 interface is beautiful and easy to use, P8 is not, and that goes for Daz studio, too. I do not like being boxed in when I'm working, and floating palletes all over the place is a messy nuisance, not a solution.
2. When I first had P8, I managed to use it perfectly well for several days before it crashed, and in that time I can clearly say I found virtually no difference whatsoever between its features and those of Poser version 7. So on that point alone, it was not worth the update cost. In fact I don't think there's any justification for updating beyond P7.
3. Even when the P8 library is working efficiently, it is still slow on my computer, as compared to the wonderful P7 library. There was no need to change it IMO and that's another reason why the upgrade is to me a waste of money. I still suspect that the P8 library cannot cope with large and complex runtimes, and I seriously doubt that it was ever tested on a huge runtime like mine.
4. Both previous versions and P8 might be great for people with a huge room full of networked super computers, but Poser in general seems very limited in scope when run on a bog standard basic home rig like mine. I therefore suspect that the stated system requirements of ALL versions of 3D art software are entirely wishful thinking, and more to do with sales optimism than domestic practicality.
5. And apart from the above, I wish I'd never ever encountered the world of 3D art, which has taken over my life at the expense of my original vocation as a traditional designer and illustrator. 3D art has not only cost me a considerable fortune, but has failed to deliver results that are anywhere near as personally satisfying, or as high a quality as the artword I did before. And I certainly wouldn't bother to defend any of the many freebie 3D models I've made, because they are all crap, too, at least in comparrison with much of the high quality stuff in the 3D stores. So in a nutshell, I don't honestly want to continue with ANY version of Poser, or take part in its future, because I don't really enjoy Render art, especially if any of its software is going to take up all my time trying to make images that no one really wants, or fix the software, or it is going to cost me money which I really don't have to spare. IMO, the world doesn't need 3D art to survive, and won't perish without it, no matter how stunningly beautiful much of it is. The only thing I am happy to agree with is that Render art does bring the capability of creativity to those who are not naturally gifted artists, and in that respect it must be of great satisfaction and benefit. 

This is only my personal opinion, and I respect any other artists who view 3D art differently.

I LOVE 3D ART..  That said Poser 8 is as zippy described..  I have stated before..  Poser 8 is a lemon..!   I have jumped through hoops. I have followed instructions.  I have apologised for being aggressive in My words.  I have had My family helping TRY to help solve.  I have had My computer taken apart and rebuilt.  And because ALL of this happened on a weekend all contact with Smith Micro is answered by an automated system.

Poser 8 is a LEMON

Was it like this when Poser 5 first came out? I wasn't around then.

no it wasn't... there was a lot more ppl having problems then.. this has actually gone smoothly for all the yelling and screaming by some...

Quote - no it wasn't... there was a lot more ppl having problems then.. this has actually gone smoothly for all the yelling and screaming by some...

Yelling and screaming?

Well I hope you have the same problems as we "yellers and screamers" do, then you'll yell and scream as well.

There is still no certainly what has gone wrong with my copy of poser, or if I did have a virus or not. I could have been hacked by someone reading this post. All I know is that my security software has never ever been turned off and jammed. AND my computer is, as always, running perfectly okay without Poser 8 on it.

You know, I've had the program since it came out, and over the last few days is when I finally pushed it fairly hard: six Daz Gen 4 characters at once, plus clothing, plus 2 additional figures per character, plus hair (prop and figure) in an interior scene with mirrors and windows (so reflection and transparency) plus point lights plus shadows, plus shaders on some of the characters that included reflection, plus raytrace bouncing and (for giggles) one or two test renders using IDL.  The pz3 file pushed 500 MB because I didn't optimize any of the characters (removing morphs I didn't need, and combining others) or textures just because I wanted to push the program.

Aside from those few pixel render artifacts around the edge of some of the images, smooth as silk.  Multiple times I had to stop a render to fix or adjust something and the program was more responsive at stopping than previous versions of Poser.  Eventually I was confident enough that, when I wanted to make multiple images with the same basic setup (characters moving into a different position, for instance), I made a change and didn't bother to save a new file because I knew it would render and not crash.

The only crash I did have, in these several days, was likely due to an outside program that made a grab for a lot of memory at the same time Poser did and caused a conflict.

So, aside from that minor render issue, I am entirely satisfied that the program did what I asked it to do.

What's the security software you're running?

I just did a 6000X4000 render with two complete figures, dystopia in the background, grass and trees in the teradome with an advanced atmosphere and IDL. Took awhile but it went without a hitch.

I know some people have been having problems, and I had a few. But I will say when SM gets this version standardised and working well for all, you will be happy with it, like I am. sr1 is coming.

 Zippy.. all things being equal.. PLEASE know that you make AWESOME models! 

You've been unlucky with Poser 8, for which I'm sorry, personally I love the new interface, but that's always a personal thing. I hate DS' interface, and a lot of people will probably tell me it's a lot like Poser's now. I still hate it L

But your models are SUPER! Don't sell yourself short!

Kalbach.    I have stated before.

There is a P.S. attached to every one of Your posts in this forum.

Please read it again to apply for Yourself..

USE IT OR REMOVE IT....

was I talking to you? did I name you?
no.
so if you have a problem with me, report me. of not, please ignore me as I will you from now on.

Zippy, I was not in anyway refering to you at all. my apologies.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2782553&page=1

As I have also stated elsewhere. I have been a Poser user since Version 2 .

I have NEVER ever posted to any forum before..

I LOVE 3D ART..  Poser 8 is a lemon..!   I have jumped through hoops. I have followed instructions.  I have apologised for being aggressive in My words.  I have had My family helping TRY to help solve.  I have had My computer taken apart and rebuilt. 

If this is My yelling and screaming.  Then is there someone who reads this post who can
PLEASE HELP ME  

P.S.
Or please help US...   For every individual who's taken time to seek assistance,  there are probably infinitely more who have not..

Noel - try our new SR1 updater for Poser 8. I believe our staff sent you a message about this yesterday. It's available now.

http://poser8.smithmicro.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2009/09/22#Poser_8_SR1

Quote - Zippy, I was not in anyway refering to you at all. my apologies.

Ironically, I had no problems with Poser 5, or 4 either.

Look, to be realistic, if any business gets (according to comments here) 99% of its customers happy, then that's all that matters to a modern business of today having made a huge investment. Besides, no sensible business is going to release info on product problems until they've had a chance to try and fix it, that's if they think fixing it is worth the time and money. If problems persist, then, and only then, will a serious problem arise for that business. If the problems are fixed, and/or no further problems arise, then for those of us who stil experience problems, the fault may be our own computers. Either way, we may never know, or may never be told, what is, or what went wrong...and to be honest, from the feedback I've had from Smith Micro support, they don't seem to have a clue what is causing me problems. It is funny though that whatever the problem is it isn't affecting any other software I've got, apart from CCleaner, which is now fine without P8. If, as baggins suggests, my system screwed up, then that 'should' affect my other software, but it consistently doesn't. As for two nights ago, I'm sure someone hacked into my computer.

There's that old saying, though, "There's no smoke without a fire."

Quote - As for two nights ago, I'm sure someone hacked into my computer.

Or... the Vista Indexing service kicked into overdrive when you added your large non-P8 runtime(s). You never did show us any of the messages you got, or your active tasks. Then you said you were done with P8 and you hated it.

So I didn't bother continuing to help you investigate what is going on.

thinkcooper ;  Thanks.  No I have not had anything from SM yet..  I have downloaded through a link here.  I will post later.

Quote - > Quote - As for two nights ago, I'm sure someone hacked into my computer.

Or... the Vista Indexing service kicked into overdrive when you added your large non-P8 runtime(s). You never did show us any of the messages you got, or your active tasks. Then you said you were done with P8 and you hated it.

So I didn't bother continuing to help you investigate what is going on.

Which perhaps indicates you haven't read some of my input, or it's possibly a waste of time repeating it.

1)You know very well  I've told you that for weeks I've been repeatedly loading my P7 runtime into P8, without crashing the computer, so there can't be a connection. You know that!

2)There's no point you complaining I haven't shown you active tasks, when you haven't thought of explaining how to extract the list. Just as smithmicro support asked for specific information, but never bothered to explain how to supply it. You know I cannot supply a screenshot of a very long partly concealed list. AND, you didn't ask to see it, you just said "I need to see it badly", which is not the same as "Can I see the list, and here's how you get it"

3)And now we are left with your opinion that my drives indexing is the reason my security got totally knocked out, when it has never happened before with P8, and certainly doesn't happen with P5, and P7.

4)You know I didn't say I hated P8, I said I didn't really like 3D art in general. I made it very clear I still consider P8 an unresolved item, and not just for me, either. We probably have a bleak future to look forward to of problems with further upgrades, P8 is not the last. I haven't had a peep of a problem with CinemaXL, Carrera, Hexagon, Daz Studio, or any other 3D software that runs perfectly happily on my computers, and has done so for years. P8 is the only serious exception.

5)I don't think it's occurred to you why I felt it essential to delete those extra 2 rogue installations of P7, because I thought it possible P8 was searching for all three runtimes at once. I remember from a long time ago that programs that get duplicated can screw up another associated program that is only linked to one instalation. That might well explain that P8 was slow because it was trying to load three duplicate runtimes at once, and that's why it speeded up considerably when I deleted those extra runtimes.

6)Nowhere do you acknowledge that P7 works perfectly well on my computers, even it had a screwed up runtime, and was running, accordeing to you, on a screwed up computer! That strongly suggests to me that whoever wrote P7 managed to produce a program that is far more rugged and dependable than Poser 8 - or that P8 is intended for a computer that is far superior to mine.

Oh, and by the way. As for not showing you messages, the fact that a tiny unreadable message about flash player popped up where the library should be, is entirely the fault of SM engineers who hadn't anticipated that people wouldn't be able to read such a small message; let alone be able to act on it.

Trekkie, I am not selling myself short.

My models are crap on a technical point. I didn't know all those years ago that I should have turned off 'smoothing' for the model parts. The result was that my models all looked shiny and false, like they were made of plastic. They look horrible in Poser lighting. I'm taking them all down and closing the freebie site, partly because I get virtually no thanks from downloaders for supplying them, and partly because they look so awful - which may be why people don't comment. People won't miss my old models as there are far better ones in the store and freebies. I was thinking about rebuilding them all and selling them in the store.

For a long time I had trouble creating models with Poser 7, P4 being not so fussy as P7. I just couldn't get the model past the assembly room, it kept saying some of my parts weren't grouped to a bone. Well I've now discovered the solution, so am back in business, if only the Renderosity staff would answer my queries on how to sell stuff, but they haven't replied. Anyway, the problem was that one shouldn't group map model parts, but should map all parts on their own. Poser rejects groups of parts that are mapped only once as a group. For example, don't apply one map tag to a group of planks for a door. Each plank has to be mapped on its own, or Poser won't link the planks to a bone. But this only applies to Cinema, I don't know how it applies to other modeling software. Anyway, the problem is now solved...that's if I ever want to continue making models. I've just completed a walled garden, with several options, and I've also got a beautiful highly detailed stable block almost finished. But I'm basically frightened of the process of selling stuff through the stores, and the store staff here at Rosity don't appear to be very enthusiastic about giving advice on how to package up the item, because my garden model is all ready to go.

You're way out of line, now Zippy. Let's take these points one by one, shall we?

Quote - 1) You know very well  I've told you that for weeks I've been repeatedly loading my P7 runtime into P8, without crashing the computer, so there can't be a connection. You know that!

Now you're talking about a crash, but we were never talking about crashing. We were talking about how you felt your computer was being slowed down by Poser 8 merely being installed.

I asked you to install Poser 8, but not to add any content, and check how it works. You did that and it worked great.

Then, per my instructions, you added the P8 content, and it still worked great. Which means that installing P8 did not cause your computer to slow down.

Here's what you said regarding this:

Quote - I've installed only the 'current' P8 content, to the runtime in my documents folder. [...] I exit P8, and everything else on the computer is ok. At this point nothing including P8 is running slow.

Clear? Without your P7 runtime added to P8, everything worked great and you had no complaints.

Later I said:

Quote - OK, zippy, so P8 is running fine and you have all your P8 content just fine, right? So, we can safely say the thread title isn't right. ;-)

Now all we have left to do is hook up your other runtimes. This was why I earlier was so emphatic about not copying or moving runtimes into Poser 8, but just to attach or add them to Poser 8 as external runtime. I see by your response that you understand that, but I had to make sure. Since the whole thread was about a totally borked P8, I needed to make sure you weren't going to copy over it, since that is a common way to bork it up.

I would not add all your external runtimes yet.

I assume you understand how to add runtimes manually through the Poser 8 GUI, right? With the button that looks like a folder with a + and a running man in it. Click that, and add just the Poser 7 runtime - what used to be the main runtime for Poser 7.

Work with that for a while. If all is normal, then exit Poser, start it again, and work with that Poser 7 content some more. If you're comfortable that it is OK, then continue. Otherwise stop and report at any point where things appear to have become borked.

And you followed with:

Quote - Okay, Bagginsbill
I've followed your instructions to the letter, and only loaded the P7 runtime, as that's the only other runtime I've ever had.
And now we are back at square one, because after 8 minutes of indexing the P7 runtime (yes it took a full 8 minutes just to index the characters folder) it is now firmly stuck a third of the way through the poses folder. I waited 10 mintes to see if the indexing would continue, which it didn't, so I closed P8. Note, the indexing was extremely slow.

Adding your P7 runtime caused your computer to slow down. Something was chewing up the CPU, and it didn't happen in P8 until you added the P7 runtime. I wanted at that point to understand what your CPU was working on. I also asked you to clarify what you meant by "indexing". It was you who first used the word, not me, and so I wondered if you really meant "indexing", as in running the Vista Index service, or whether you were mis-using that word to refer to merely loading the content into the library GUI.

The reason this distinction is important is because P8 really does "index" your content libraries, via the Vista Index service. This is not something that P7 or prior ever did, and that is why they were slow and could not do a "search" feature. P8 finds content more quickly via the Indexing service and also provides you a way to search your content, via the Indexing service. My interest at that point was to find out of the Vista Indexing service was busy. I needed to see the process list, not the application list, because the Vista Indexing service is not an application.

Your next post was this:

Quote - I think I've found the solution to all this and I'm fixing it right now, because it seems to be working. Give me an hour to reinstall Poser 8. The problem is certainly Poser 7. Oh God, this is so embarrassing.

I assume that's when you found the duplicate copies of the P7 runtime. Which is fine, but you're assumption that the duplicates was a problem was incorrect. That's when I first explained the Indexing business and told you I needed to see your process list very badly to see what tasks were most active. My suspicion was that the Indexing was running, but I have no way to tell at that point or even now. It would explain why your computer was still busy even after closing P8. Other possibilities were that P8 never actually closed. I mentioned all this, and told you why I needed to see the task list. But you never answered that.

Instead you wrote:

Quote - Right. I've only just got back up again. Something terrifying happened to me last night. I managed to get both Poser 7 and 8 running perfectly. The P8 library loaded the P7 runtime very quickly. And then while I'm writing up a report for this forum my hard drive starts chattering away and up pops that Windows message saying my security has failed. Something had shut down all my security, even the firewall, and no matter what I tried I couldn't get the security working again, so I disconected the net and the hard drive then stopped whiring.

Now maybe it was a virus, or maybe there was a problem with the Indexing service gone haywire. I have no idea. But I do know that it is incredibly unlikely that the "virus" struck at the moment that you started to use the P7 runtime in P8. I also think it would have been smart for you to post the exact windows message so I would know what it said. There is the possibility that you mis-interpreted the message. For example, if the P7 runtime was in the Program Files folder and Vista with UAC didn't like Poser 8 scanning the Poser 7 program folder, then there was no virus. It may have simply been that Vista UAC was being super cautious and did not like Poser 8 scanning the contents of the other program. I know and you know that Poser 7 and Poser 8 are buddy apps from the same vendor, but Vista doesn't know that. It's normal behavior is to freak out when it sees one program poking around in the guts of another program. This is also why SM asked you to move the P7 runtime out of Program Files. But instead you confused "moved" with "copy" and complained that moving 9 GB of data would take a long time and you shouldn't have to do this.

Well, guess what? All the evidence so far suggests that it is Vista getting pissed off that P8 is looking at P7's runtime. Even though you told P8 to do that, Vista doesn't know that, which is one of the reasons UAC is so bad.

But all of this is conjecture because you stopped the process you and I were involved in.

Quote - 2)There's no point you complaining I haven't shown you active tasks, when you haven't thought of explaining how to extract the list. Just as smithmicro support asked for specific information, but never bothered to explain how to supply it. You know I cannot supply a screenshot of a very long partly concealed list. AND, you didn't ask to see it, you just said "I need to see it badly", which is not the same as "Can I see the list, and here's how you get it"

Wrong. I showed you how to get it in this post. I even included a screen shot.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3525874&ebot_calc_page#message_3525874

As to the very long list, I only need to see the top of the sorted list, sorted by CPU usage, since we're interested in knowing what process is using the CPU the most. Most people know how to do that - you click on CPU. I didn't know you weren't clear on that, but all you had to do was ask. You didn't ask.

Quote - 3)And now we are left with your opinion that my drives indexing is the reason my security got totally knocked out, when it has never happened before with P8, and certainly doesn't happen with P5, and P7.

Yes, exactly, that is my current theory. I told you to just answer my questions. You're not a software expert. I am. I have a 100 things in my head that I'm juggling with regard to what could be the problem. I don't feel I need to explain to you all the reasons, nor are you actually prepared to understand them.

This thing you just said is an example of your inappropriate belief that you are a better judge of what is possible or likely, versus what isn't. You say that "certainly doesn't happen with P5 and P7". Of course it doesn't happen - P5 and P7 do not do SEARCH. You seem to make judgements about what is possible based on the faulty assumption that P5, P7, and P8 are largely identical programs. They are NOT. P8's management and use of files and content is totally different from previous versions of Poser. You're not qualified to judge what it means if P7 did or did not behave a certain way. Every time you do that, you interfere with the process of getting to the bottom of the problem. That's why earlier I gave you a metaphor - I'm the doctor, you're the patient - just answer the questions. I don't have time to teach you everything about software. You're lucky I like you, or I wouldn't bother making this lengthy reply. You've become more trouble than I imagined you would.

Quote - 4)You know I didn't say I hated P8, I said I didn't really like 3D art in general. I made it very clear I still consider P8 an unresolved item, and not just for me, either. We probably have a bleak future to look forward to of problems with further upgrades, P8 is not the last. I haven't had a peep of a problem with CinemaXL, Carrera, Hexagon, Daz Studio, or any other 3D software that runs perfectly happily on my computers, and has done so for years. P8 is the only serious exception.

Don't quibble. Let me extract the key phrases that add up to "I hate P8".

Quote - I do not, repeat, not, like the new Poser interface. It is very ugly. I can clearly say I found virtually no difference whatsoever between its features and those of Poser version 7. So on that point alone, it was not worth the update cost. In fact I don't think there's any justification for updating beyond P7.

Even when the P8 library is working efficiently, it is still slow on my computer ... no need to change it IMO and that's another reason why the upgrade is to me a waste of money. I still suspect that the P8 library cannot cope with large and complex runtimes, and I seriously doubt that it was ever tested on a huge runtime like mine.

So, ugly interface, no difference in features whatsoever, not worth the update cost, waste of money. But that isn't summarized by the word "hate"? You have quite an odd way of expressing your love for P8, then.

By the way, you took a jab (as do so many others) at the testing process, saying that you don't think anybody tested a "huge" runtime like yours? Huge? 9 GB? We had one beta tester with 500+ GB of content, and another with  close to 1000 GB. Your 9 GB runtime is a toy compared with what we tested with. Your assumption that your runtime size is an issue is bogus, because you incorrectly assume SM are incompetent. Yes there is something different about your computer, but not about your "huge" runtime. LOL Don't think you're special just because you have 9 GB of content.

Quote - 5)I don't think it's occurred to you why I felt it essential to delete those extra 2 rogue installations of P7, because I thought it possible P8 was searching for all three runtimes at once. I remember from a long time ago that programs that get duplicated can screw up another associated program that is only linked to one instalation. That might well explain that P8 was slow because it was trying to load three duplicate runtimes at once, and that's why it speeded up considerably when I deleted those extra runtimes.

Are you the expert or am I? I know that adding only one of three copies of that runtime to P8 means that P8 only saw one copy, regardless of how many more were on your computer. Did you know that? Moreover, as I said above, the real issue is most likely the Vista Indexing service poking around in another program's protected area. After examining the task list and a couple other things, I was going to have you go into your NT log and show me the log entries for security and application errors. The most likely thing is we'll find that the Indexing service is jammed up getting exceptions and taking up a lot of time while Vista writes thousands of error log entries complaining about the constant security violations from P8 asking to see P7's runtime.

If you'd moved the P7 runtime out, which is another thing I was going to have you try (as SM asked) we'd have been able to confirm it as well. But we never got that far.

Quote - 6)Nowhere do you acknowledge that P7 works perfectly well on my computers, even it had a screwed up runtime, and was running, accordeing to you, on a screwed up computer! That strongly suggests to me that whoever wrote P7 managed to produce a program that is far more rugged and dependable than Poser 8 - or that P8 is intended for a computer that is far superior to mine.

I don't need to acknowledge that. I understand software and P7 and P8. I know what to think about and what isn't relevant. Here's what you are not acknowedging and why this process isn't moving forward. P8 is a different program than P7. It does new things that P7 never did. It uses components and services that P7 isn't even aware of. Got that?

Now I'm still ready to help if you can get past the fact that you need to calm down and do what I say. While you were doing that, we were making progress. Once you decided that you knew what the problem was (a virus) all progress stopped.
 

By the way, there happens to be a very simple solution if it does turn out to be the indexing service. Moving the P7 runtime is probably not necessary to solve the problem. SM provided a way to tell P8 which runtimes it is allowed to index and which it is not. But I'm not going to bother having you do that until I can confirm the underlying cause of the slowdown/security warning problem.

If it is the fact that the P7 runtime is in a protected area, we can fix it by changing one character in your LibraryPrefs.xml file. But I don't want to go there unless we know we should, because you might screw something up for no reason.

Quote - Trekkie, I am not selling myself short.

My models are crap on a technical point. I didn't know all those years ago that I should have turned off 'smoothing' for the model parts. The result was that my models all looked shiny and false, like they were made of plastic.

Wrong. Smoothing has nothing to do with that. The plastic appearance is defined by the shaders/materials. Something else I know a lot about...

Bagginsbill, I have always been aware that P8 is totally different from previous versions, it has often been stated that the program code has been entirely rewritten. Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough. As a matter of fact I do now see where you are going and would agree with your proposition. I just wish you'd stated all this before, but I guess you didn't know then.

However, I am not willing to provide detailed information on the areas of info you request, openly on this forum, in case it threatens my security. I don't want the whole world seeing the details of my computer, especially the details of my security, which I've now changed. This is a public site and I have lots of problems using the Rosity message service.

I am also not cross. Severely depressed would be a better word. Finding a solution to this problem is taking up too much of my time when I could be getting on with work using Poser 7 only, and dealing with all my other paperwork. At the moment, and I'm prepared to admit I'm wrong, it doesn't seem worth the effort to change to Poser 8 and risk further problems. Yes indeed, what you say above sounds sensible and logical, but I need a fully working computer or my paperwork is buggered. You see I am totally responsible for someone in full time care, and I have to correspond with people, and family, on a regular daily basis. Having to spend hours sorting this out is something I cannot afford to do. And given the choice between P8 and my dependant relative, I'm sorry, but P8 is the one that has to go.

If you like, I have no objection to you requesting Renderosity delete this entire post if you are unhappy with the title. I can't say fairer than that, but even if you are right about the true cause of this problem, the people who sold me this computer did not tell me that I would be able to run software, except, that I would have problems integrating Vista with P7 and P8. Come to think of it, I'm wondering what effect Windows 7 will have on Poser.

So lets end all this now by saying that I am freely giving up P8, plus any future Poser updates, just so I can continue to do my essential paperwork. And you can ask Rosity to delete this entire post. You and SM are right, I am wrong. Problem with P8 solved.

By the way, I apologise here to smtihmicro for saying I don't like the new interface. I didn't think I shouldn't state I don't like something, and I also apologise to smithmicro for not appreciating how much different and wonderful all the features are of P8. I withdraw everything I've said in the above posts. I shall now return, tail between legs, to my corner.

Quote - > Quote - Trekkie, I am not selling myself short.

My models are crap on a technical point. I didn't know all those years ago that I should have turned off 'smoothing' for the model parts. The result was that my models all looked shiny and false, like they were made of plastic.

Wrong. Smoothing has nothing to do with that. The plastic appearance is defined by the shaders/materials. Something else I know a lot about...

I was talking about smoothing vertices!!!!!!!!!  I know all about the plastic feature of shaders. I do know that my models look a lot better when I turn off the vertices feature. I know because I'm doing it right now and it works.

I am not coming back to this post.

quoting zippy:  > Quote - I'm taking them all down and closing the freebie site, partly because I get virtually no thanks from downloaders for supplying them, and partly because they look so awful - which may be why people don't comment. People won't miss my old models as there are far better ones in the store and freebies. I was thinking about rebuilding them all and selling them in the store.

     It has just dawned on me who you are.  I accidentally came across an ad for Poser 6 in the autumn of 2005.  I knew of Hollywood studios using CGI, but didn't know one could get such a program for personal use.  I bought my first PC and Poser 6, and began to try to learn.  Some established artists pointed out some freebie sites to me.  My first animation features your big oak tree models and the blackberry vine-covered fencing.  Your trees were the only ones I had seen which were big enough to suggest old growth, and they had complete canopies, which allowed me to fly Tinkerbell over the forest.
     Understand, it took a while for me to learn the etiquette of the 3D community.  I am guilty of not having thanked you when I downloaded your models.  Belatedly, I apologize for that.  Your models were a great blessing to me when I was a newbie, and I still use them now.  I would hope that you would continue to offer those freebies and commercial models, so that others who are now new to 3D would also be able to benefit from you.

Thank you, Zippy, for those big old oak trees! :D

 Zippy... showing the list of running programs does nothing to jeopardize your computer.

It's just that. A list of running processes. Like telling me the city you live in doesn't enable me to actually come knocking on your door. Without your name and the street name and number, it's not enough :)

And your models aren't plastic-y at all. And a lot of commercial models don't have Smoothing off by default either. Most of Daz' models blow up like balloons unless you turn it off. I do that on everything by reflex :) (because I LIKE smoothing ON for my humans. They look nicer that way!)

I think, I have found an explanation for the "lots of XML files" problem described at the start of this thread (by ockham, bevans84 et al.) and a workaround.

Internet Explorer stores the temporary internet files in subfolders of "UserDir/local settings/temporary internet files/content.IE5" (don't bother about "IE5" - this is historical). You can see the "temporary internet files" folder only, if you have turned on option "show hidden and system files" in Windows Explorer. But even then "content.IE5" and its subfolders remain hidden!

There is a little trick to make these folders visible: copy "temporary internet files" into another directory. In this case the copy is treated by Windows as a simple folder, and you can see everything in it.

When running Poser, new subdirectories containg a lot of XML files (and some others) are created within "temporary internet files". I could prove that by cleaning "temporary internet files" directory (see below), then starting Poser, placing Alyson Casual into an empty scene and then closing Poser (without saving). This simple operation generated a subdirectory containing 192 files!

As cspear has stated, Poser uses some components of Internet Explorer. I suppose, the generation of all these files are an unwanted side effect caused by these IE components.

This is also an explanation, that only people, who do not use IE for browsing (like me) are having problems: IE limits the cache size and deletes files when this limit is reached. But if you never run IE, no cleaning is done! So I have once reached a maximum of more than 40,000 files occupying more than 150 MB of disk space!

The workaround I suggest is to run IE from time to time and to clean the browser cache (delete temporary files). That worked for me.

But I hope, that the programmers of Poser will find a solution to overcome this strange effect.

(I made the tests with Poser 8.0.1.10434 and IE 8 under Windows XP SP 3)

Perhaps a stupid question but is the library system an option ? is it possible to turn it off ?

I dont have Poser 8.

For IE go to internet options in the control panel , you can set the maximum space to be used for temporary files.

After reading this thread I am exhuasted.  I knew Zippy from the beginning of the thread: author of three oak trees, Zippy's cellar - a jail like scene - a beautiful windmill, and hedge.  Once bagginsbill became envolved I was sure we would find a solution to Zippy's problems.  I think we still might have.  We were soooo close.

Coming to the end of the thread with no satisfying conclusion is very disappointing.

Best Wishes,
Rªnce

Attached Link: Piriform's Crap Cleaner

And if you're running Vista, Piriform's Defraggler gives you a graphic visual progress display, which Vista's defrag utility lacks.

I believe Zippy DID use that utility.  I've been a fan of CCleaner for some time now.  It also cleans out those hard to find .SOL files left over from viewing FLASH animations.  Simply cleaning out the Internet Cache doesn't delete those files.

I'm sure if Zippy had allowed bagginsbill a little more time the whole issue would have been resolved.  Maybe Renderosity should remove the whole thread.

-R

If you are getting lots of XML files piling up, PLEASE PLEASE work with SM.

I was on a call with them last week and we discussed this matter of XML files accumulating. Poser is not doing this, the Flex UI is not doing this, both are telling your browser/OS "do not cache these conversations", and yet the conversations are being cached in your browser cache. They are not supposed to be there and for most people they don't exist.

Only a very small number of people who experience this have cooperated with SM to identify common factors. SM have not figured it out, because it has to be figured out entirely by asking you questions.

If you really want this fixed, send me your computer and I'll figure it out. If you're not willing to do that, then you must work with SM patiently, do what they say, and answer questions.

Again, only a small subset of users see this happening, it is not by design, and we have no idea why it is happening or what to do about it. If all that happens is complaints in this forum, then this WILL NOT be fixed, guaranteed.

I'm not doing this thread again - not doing forum support anymore. I wasted a ton of my time with people who didn't really want a solution if it involved anything more than SM magically solving it.

Good luck.

bagginsbill:

Quote -   If you are getting lots of XML files piling up, PLEASE PLEASE work with SM.

Only a very small number of people who experience this have cooperated with SM to identify common factors. SM have not figured it out, because it has to be figured out entirely by asking you questions.

Oh, I didn't realize this;  I'd be a prime candidate since I have five P8 licenses, and I'd be willing to run tests and return the data.  I'll send SM a note.

Quote - I am having similar problems (not all) and I have mentioned it in several threads here..

I am using Apple OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard"

I have also contacted Smith Micro with NO RESPONSE>>

You are not alone. There is evidently an issue with Flash in Snow Leopard and Smith Micro has acknowledged it. See this thread in DAZ 3D Forums: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=121408

 Thanks Dandyman, that was a good find, I had no idea there was a flash issue with regards to version 8.  I'm not running 8 yet, but its a good thing to keep an eye on.