After 2 weeks my P8 library nightmare [no library] ended as mysteriously as it began.  I had gone back & forth with SM tech help about 25 times and they were having me repeat things tried before.
One of their suggestion was to make sure I had made all Vista updates.

-I did a Vista update and one of the update files was "Realtek something or other"
-Upon rebooting I had no internet connectivity.
-Got MicroSoft support on the phone.
-MS had me go to Device Manager/Network Adapters and delete the two files there.  They were Realtek files.
-I rebooted & internet connectivity was restored.
-Launched P8 and Viola! -- library was there.
-After several reboots & P8 launches I lost the library once, but for the most part I have the library.

For some strange reason a folder where I keep a lot of poses will not show hand poses.  The files are all there, they just don't show in the library.  Odd.

Also, so a not to tempt fate I keep the pc on and poser launched more or less continuously.

Really hope SM irons out the library problems with PoserPro 2010.

Glad to hear that you've found something that sort of works.
I've come to the conclusion that P8 is a piece of crap that never should have been released.  It won't even finish a scan of it's own miniscule base folder in HOURS!
All of P7, DAZ/Studio, Carrara and Bryce handle their library structures better than P8 does.  heck they all handle the P8 structure better than P8 does.
What total twit decided that he needed to know how many items were in every folder BEFORE he opened any of them?
Sorry I'm still at the POed stage.
Will rebooting help at all?  So far it's just better, easier and safer to use P7.  No point in an app that can't read it's own data structures.

Just for the sake of balance, I've not had a single issue with the P8 library or GUI (during beta and beyond) and have found it a huge improvement on earlier versions.

While it's clear some have had/ are having issues, I wouldn't say this qualifies the statement that (quote) 'P8 is a piece of crap that should never have been released'.

Statements like that really don't help anyone even if they do reflect the frustrations you're feeling.

Frankly it's quite offensive to those who were involved in development and beta testing of Poser.
 

Sorry for my earlier frustrations. My appologys to those at Smith Micro for having said P8 is crap.  There are still some seriously flawed bits of programming in there.  My main frustration was that at the time I had NO access to anything in P8.
    What was happening was this.  P8 would go off into the boonys reading files for about 15 minutes at startup.  When disk access had slowed or stopped I'd be expecting it to have labeled all of the folders so that all I would need to do was click on a folder to open it.  Instead it was leaving all but a few with "?" on them.  The only conclusion I can come to about what was seeming to happen is that P8 was doing a complete search for content within the library and then not updating the actual displayed information in the user interface.  At that point I'd click on a folder I wanted to open and get an icon on the end of that line that looked like it should be a "working" icon.  In fact it's a refresh button that, if clicked,  forces P8 to reread the file names in that folder.   
My main frustration in the end turns out to be button which:
A) Isn't obivously a button
B) Doesn't have text or icon that are at all useful in knowing what it's for
C) shouldn't be needed
   If the button had been properly made and labeled so that it was obvious what it was for I would not have been having the frustrations that I was.  Labeling it "Refresh" comes to mind as something useful.   A scan for content that doesn't discover content that is actually there still qualifys as really bad programming.  So does a button that isn't either obviously a button or labeled in an obvious way.
The refresh button and associated code are not needed at all.  If the user clicks on a folder that P8 hasn't scanned, no matter why it hasn't scanned it, it should automatically scan the folder and open it.  Just remove the button and the code that calls that button.  Calling the refresh routine directly is much more efficient.  The user doesn't know, doesn't need to know and doesn't care whether the program needs to rescan the folder.  All he/she knows is that that's the folder he/she wants open and that the program should open it when it's clicked on.
      P8 should on initial startup and search for content be creating a permanent database of the items, poses etc that are in the library.  Displaying the number of items that are in a folder is fluff.  The user doesn't  care how many items are in a folder until it's open and he/she can see exactly what's there.  Since it's putting the number of items inside a folder on the folder that seems to require the extra scan at every program startup it's counter productive.  That's a good 15 minutes of time wasted waiting for that scan.  Which in my case it isn't even completing properly.
   On the lighter side I'm glad to see that the computer industry still hasn't changed much over the last 10 or 15 years.  The programmers and designers still don't spend enough time letting each other know what they're doing. ;)

I have had a few library issues of my own.  I refuse to put Poser 8 on Vista because I can't trust Vista to remain stable as it is.  That is another issue all together.

One of the reasons I bought Poser 8 was the added stuff that was after market, namely the wardrobe wizard and the content library.  Have yet to try the wardrobe wizard because I have to go back and reinstall the several hundred content files again.  So, knowing that I have to install all of my old files again I figured I would install them and then make use of the Favorites tab so I can arrange them on the spot.

Headache #1
It seems that all the Daz content I installed went to a download category and all the zipped files I installed went to a separate download category.  So with the Poser content I now have three categories in which to search for files.  Great.

Headache #2
I went to favorites and made 2 folders, Male and Female.  I figured I would lump all the figures in there and then connect skin mats and morphs to them.  So I went back and installed all the 4 series models (V4, A4, M4 and so on).  They installed fine.  Went to refresh the files so it would update and lost the files.  They still show in runtime, but not in my content library.  But fear not, there was a patch available, so I downloaded it and installed it.  Which leads me to...

Headache #3
Now, in my favorites there are only 2 folders and no options to create more.  I can click on one of the two options and create subfolders, but not any new folders, which kinda shoots down my plans.  Furthermore, there are a few folders that I did create when experiementing with this that I can't delete.  Now that is truly frustrating.

Headache #4
One thing I have noticed is that if you want to place something in favorites it has to be done individually, not as a collective.  So if you have a series of mat files that offer 35 different hair colors, you have to Fav all 35 one at a time instead of just Faving the whole folder.  That has the potential of wasting a ton of time.

So what I would like is a little guidance on how I can correct or overcome these little headaches.  I think Poser 8 will be fun to use once I get over these obsticles, but right now I am a bit irritated with it enough to go back to Poser Pro. 

Does anyone have any useful advice for me?

I have been running Poser 8 on two Vista machines.. (both low end) This is what I do for all software when installing, not just Poser....

First, Update your Operating System and then your Drivers. Reboot even if the Update says it is not needed and then check again. Windows likes to have a Rebooted machine check. Do a Scan Disk, then a Defrag. Reboot and then install the Program to the default location, but select either Shared Folder or specify location of Content during the install (Specify if you have a second Drive, that is not external)

NOTE: If you have a lot of Security Software or you let it decide, use MSCONFIG to Boot into Diagnostic Mode to Install, Activate, and then install the Updates. Then launch the Program before Booting normally. When ever you install an Update, let it Replace the Preferences.

When installing Content, do not install it to the Program Files Runtime. That will save you a lot of headache down the road. (Yes, you can install DAZ3D Content outside the Main Runtime, just make sure you install all related files to the same Library Folder.)

When using the Program, set up your Preferences and make sure you Render Separate Process and that you turn off Use external Binary Morphs if you use the DAZ3D Figures.

Create some Test Scenes that you use to check performance Issues. I call these my Baseline Scenes and I have done this since before Poser 5, though I really got into it with Poser 5 when I was doing System Evaluations.

These scenes will help you determine if the issue is with the new Scene or some other factor. If Dynamics work in your Test Scene, but the Scene using several new Products has issues, it may be something amiss with the Content like a conflict with Object Naming.

Use the Taskbar intelligently... Task Manager and some other monitors are good... The Dancing Dog or New Friend Request at the latest Social Site may cause issues.

I love Toolbars and Dashboards... Read up on what they do, before agreeing to install. If you already have it running, try disabling if you have odd issues (MSCONFIG allows you to do this to test out the issue, to rule out conflicts). 

Lastly, if you have issues, contact Smith Micro Support...you can even ask for me (Attn John)

Thanks John.  Do you know why it was decided to make use of IE as a part of the ibrary functions in P8?  Personally I'd prefer programs that are completely stand alone. 
    My reason is simple.  It's a lot easier to make sure that a program you've worked on is stable if you're dealing with only code specific to that program.
   I won't get into why I have issues with MicroSoft here. ;)