The latest in an occasional series of "this is weird" posts from me. :-)

I run my Poser 7, as I did all my previous versions, from a portable hard drive. It doesn't require installing, and I can use it on whatever computer happens to be handy. To achieve this, I installed as normal, then moved everything from C:Program FilesSmith Micro to my portable drive. It all worked, but I noticed that version 7 was keeping its settings - Poser.ini, LibraryPrefs.xml and so on in C:Documents and SettingsUsernameApplication DataPoser 7. Previous versions had kept these files in the Poser directory, but no matter, I synchronised the settings folders between the two machines I used and all was well.

Recently I did some registry cleaning and got rid of some entries associated with Poser, mainly file associations. Some other stuff got zapped at the same time, and although Poser still works, takes up the UI I want when I start it up, and knows where all my runtimes are, I can't find the settings files any more!

I've done a system-wide search, as well as manually browsing the obvious places like the Poser executable folder, C:Documents and SettingsUsernameApplication Data, C:Documents and SettingsUsernameLocal SettingsApplication Data, the same folders under Administrator and All Users, and also Program Files and My Documents. My preferences are set to display all files including hidden and system files. I can't find Poser.ini anywhere, and I know that does get updated every time I use Poser. Or I thought it did... So how does Poser know what UI I wanted, where my runtimes are, and so forth?

It must be clairvoyant. :-)

have you looked in the Poser 7 application folder ?

Yes I did. I did the most comprehensive search I could manage on my C: drive, and also on the portable drive; then I browsed the application folder myself in case the search missed something. It wouldn't be the first time...

To be honest, poser.ini does exist in one place on my system: a folder where I keep backups of my settings. I don't know why Poser would start looking in there, I didn't tell it to (not even sure I can tell it to, anyway); besides, the backup files' dates don't get updated when I run Poser.

Off-topic: I searched these forums for the words poser and weird in posts made under my user name over the past five years, and had 718 results. LOL

Of course that figure would be 719 if I re-ran the search because of this post.

So that's roughly 5,340 posts where I haven't used those words. :-)

Rendo search does not understand "and", only "or". It found the places you said "Poser". Look for "weird" alone and you only find 18 times in 5 years. 

Quote - Rendo search does not understand "and", only "or".

Rendo search allegedly understands very little. Maybe our expectations have been unreasonably raised by the algorithm-meisters of Mountain View...

In that case, perhaps I should be disappointed that less than 12% of my posts have contained the word "poser". Must have been off-topic most of the time. :)

:lol:

Shouldn't there be a language advisory on that?

"Gorblimey" is quite strong for an Englishman, you know.

:lol:

Now I'm going to get in trouble for checking the language advisory when there isn't any language in my post that would offend an American. I'd better say "bugger" as well to justify it.

:lol:

yes, by all means - however, in the states one can't say "anthony weiner" or "kim kardashian" either, without appropriate warning :lol:

^ Reported as spam.

Try using Process Monitor to find out what files Poser accesses when it starts up.

Good call araneldon. I find some of those sysinternals utilities rather scary, but it did the trick. It's a pity in a way, because I was quite enjoying the wild speculation. :)

It was nothing to do with my registry cleaning. My network at work recently introduced a redirect for roaming profiles, and Poser was going directly to the remote server copy. Some applications seem to write to C:Documents and Settings and wait to be synchronised at log-on/off, and it seems that some don't.

I don't need to understand it, just be aware of it. I can relax now. :)