Two days ago, I started Poser . . . it got as far as the screen credits and then it just disappeared . . .

I tried several times;  rebooted and tried several times more, rebooted a half dozen times;  then re-installed it;  then uninstalled and rebooted and re-installed it . . . . nothing works!  It gets as far as the credits screen and disappears . . .no errord, no nothing . . . .

anyone know what's wrong all the sudden?  I've been using it on this system for almost a year now with no problems at all.  XP Pro system and no recent updates of any kind . . . only thing I haven't tried is restoring back four days or so . . . O, an nothing new installed.

I had the same thing happen when I first installed Poser 6.  The solution was to reduce the hardware acceleration.

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm reduce what hardware acceleration?
it's been running fine for a year and quits but none of the hardware has changed . . . where and how do I reduce hardware acceleration?

More often than not, when Poser has a hissy fit like this for no reason, it's down to corrupt prefs files, delete them and see if it starts, if it does it will rebuild them anyway, you'll only need to re-do them to how you like them.
Worth a try!

OK, went to prefs folder and deleted all files - tried to load and stopped at the same place . . .
thank you for the suggestion . . .

Ok then the only other thing would be a "clean" install, did you try that?

Cut your runtime from the Poser folder and put it somewhere safe.
Delete Poser using windows, navigate to your Poser folder on your "C" drive [it will be there] and delete it completely.
Re-install remembering to add all SR fixes, see if it runs.
If it does, delete that runtime and replace it with your original runtime, it should work, I have done this previously!
It's your call to do it though, I know it works but I take no responsibility if you do something wrong! ;)

I misunderstood and thought you had just started using Poser.  If you've been using it for years then this is not likely the problem.  Also, this works if your on XP--don't know about Vista or W7.  But if you want to try it anyway:

Right click on the desktop
Click Properties from the menu
Click the Settings tab
Click the Advanced button
Click the Troubleshoot tab
Bump the hardware acceleration slider down a notch. click OK and try to open Poser and see if it works.  If not, bump it down another notch, and so on.

Just a long shot, but thought it might eliminate some possibilities.

These are the only four files in my P6 root dir that have a date after the most recent date of the files on the original P6 CD (6/02/2006). 

They are all four dated the same date as the last installation date of the app.

uninstal.log
Poser.dta
PoserReg.dta
setuplog.txt

thank you for all the help - running XP Pro . . . I happened to remember I installed a couple browsers to look them over . . . Mozilla and another one on the 19th and I don't think these were the problem but wasn't conscious of any other changes, so I stuck my tongue in my pocket so I wouldn't swallow it and did a quick restore to the 18th - Poser opend without a hiccup . . .

I hate doing this because I don't know what kind of damage it might do to my files, but I had to get it back to working . . . and nothing else seemed to work . . .

whoops!
...and "Poser.exe" dated from the last SR update

Let's see if I can get the story straight . . .

A week ago, I installed Foxfire so I could see what it was doing to my sites;  first thing, it required  an install of QuickTime, which required Windows update to SP3, which caused my graphics driver to roll to original and caused problems . . . so when I did the restore, the problem was cleared up by undoing the installs which caused the driver problems for my graphics card . . . that's the only reason the restore to 5 days ago worked . . . otherwise, it would have required me to go download the newest driver and install it - which I will do anyway . . .

thought I'd not this just in case someone else has a problem . . .  they sent me a link to the article:
Title: My graphics program keeps crashing or disappearing
URL: http://support.smithmicro.com/cs/smkb.cfg/php.exe/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2097

and answer to problems, links to drivers and also mentioned of hardware acceleration trick which I haven't done yet . . . but will if I need to.

You can download and install the latest Driver again. Windows Updater does this in some configurations.

yes;  trouble is they initiated the loading of an old driver instead of a new one in this case . . . I turned off the auto updater 5 years ago and then updated because of a plugin . . . I did go get the newest driver, so thanks for the reminder to RUN it!   LOL