I've been trying to confront this issue with Queue Manager not working on my system. After explaining the problem to SM and sending them a detailed descrition of my system (including paths to my working Poser folders, i.e., C:UsersMyNameDocumentsPoser Pro 2010 / C:PoserGC), I got this response:

"I was asked to assist you with this issue. I believe this is a Permission Issue because of the installation of Poser Pro 2010 to the Users Folder.
The Program should be installed to the Program Files Folder and the content to the Shared Folder on Windows 7.
Can I ask you why you decided to install the program to your Users Folder?
Thanks
John Csaky | Customer/Tech Support"

Um, what do I say to that? I thought that M$ discourages installing to the Program Files folder and so does this forum because of UAC issues.

Any thoughts?

I long, long ago stopped putting -anything- onto the C: drive that wasn't the OS. Before it was the need to reinstall windows at regular intervals, and the fact that most programs had no connection to the OS; with Vista and the 'Lets lock the directory tree to keep the idiots safe!' philosophy that M$ has adopted, there is even more reason to have at least one additional hard drive to put you apps and perishable data on. It makes sectional backups easier, keeps it in plain sight (not buried in the ridiculous folder structure win has adopted), and if the OS blows, you lose no data. At worst, you might have to reinstall the app over itself to reset the registry entries. But a lot of programs will -still- fire up just fine if they are on an separate drive.

Okay, that's one vote in my favour (sort-of) - thanks for that, Dale.

Anyone else?

Aside from basic 'system' stuff, I never put anything into the Programs folder on the C: drive.

If the option is availble to you, I'd recommend having a partition, preferably on a separate HD, dedicated to programs, including Poser.

ive often thought about this and doesnt the OS spray files everywhere so you cant have a nice neat drive with JUST the OS files on C:? i suppose in an ideal world you need three drives,one for OS,one for virtual memory swap file and one for apps.

I simply installed to a folder "D:PoserPoser version" and never had any issues with permissions.

and yes you are correct about Microsoft's guidelines.

Quote - ive often thought about this and doesnt the OS spray files everywhere so you cant have a nice neat drive with JUST the OS files on C:? i suppose in an ideal world you need three drives,one for OS,one for virtual memory swap file and one for apps.

Like for Linux? :biggrin:

So far, the concensus apppears to be: do not install your software to the C:Program Files folder in Windows 7. Can anyone point me to a MS source citing that bit of wisdom?

ah misconception

you see, Program Files is protected by UAC - User Account Control - which at it's basic level prevents anything writing to files on the fly. and since, thats basically what poser does with content files in it's day to day operations, you get permissions issues.

now SM say to put the content in Users and the program in Program Files.. but that is a kludge. far simpler to just install Poser into a folder that is not protected by UAC.

Thank you, Magnus. That is precisely what I thought too. I guess I'll have a poke around the MS site and see if I can find a quote somewhere that suggests installing software elsewhere to the C:Program Files folder.

Thanks muchly !

It's not a kludge - it's how application are meant to be installed (and on mac and Linux too, though the names are different). The application goes in Program Files, and shouldn't include files that need to be changed after installation barring updates, settings go in UsersyouAppDatasome folder, those are the things that the application needs to change but the user isn't intended to access directly, and documents (files that the user will open and work with directly) go in the Documents folder (which by default is also in the Users folder, though it can easily be moved).

oh. I'm sorry from having an opinion about it being a kludge in the way poser works. I'll shut up now...

Quote - It's not a kludge - it's how application are meant to be installed (and on mac and Linux too, though the names are different). The application goes in Program Files, and shouldn't include files that need to be changed after installation barring updates, settings go in UsersyouAppDatasome folder, those are the things that the application needs to change but the user isn't intended to access directly, and documents (files that the user will open and work with directly) go in the Documents folder (which by default is also in the Users folder, though it can easily be moved).

By that logic, if the whole programme is installed in the My Documents folder (instead of just the specific files that need to be changed), you most definitely should not have permissions issues.

After all, it really doesn't matter to Windows (or the registry) where software is installed. People are running Poser from drives other than the C: drive. The whole point of permissions is to stay away from folders that have been hobbled by UAC.

Oh, btw, ongoing saga... I went ahead and disabled UAC AND the firewall and still have the following issue:

Locally, the Render Queue Manager picks up the job from Poser Pro 2010, but FFRender continuously fails ... the message given is:
"Launching FFRender for parsing...
..FFRender failed to launch."
in an endless list of apparent attempts.
Based on advice of people who have had similar issues, I have done the following:
-- I commented out the localhosts ::1 entry in the
/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/

hosts file and rebooted the machine
-- I have entered FFRender and Poser Pro 2010 in the firewall as
allowed programmes, for local network and internet
-- I have run both PP2010 and Queue Manager as administrator
The errors have not gone away... queue manager is not doing as advertised.

Quote - It's not a kludge - it's how application are meant to be installed (and on mac and Linux too, though the names are different). The application goes in Program Files, and shouldn't include files that need to be changed after installation barring updates, settings go in UsersyouAppDatasome folder, those are the things that the application needs to change but the user isn't intended to access directly, and documents (files that the user will open and work with directly) go in the Documents folder (which by default is also in the Users folder, though it can easily be moved).

There's a Linux version?? :biggrin: just kidding. Seriously, though, in Linux you can install your apps anywhere you want to. For instance, I've got multiple versions of Blender running in my name folder... no dramas. There is no bloody registry to corrupt. <>

I have one drive where all my programs go. I install everything to it's own folder, on the root of that drive. I have no problems and my life is light and carefree ;o)...lol. I don't worry about  UAC because I'm religious about scanning for nasties and I don't engage in risky internet behavior. I know that's not a guarantee that nothing bad will creep in, but it sure helps. And it's been working for me for years.

Laurie

I always install Poser to:

C:Poser #

What Dale B said is probably a better way to do it, but I have been too lazy to set that up. Installing to a sub-directory of the root root directory is the way to go. I would never put Poser more than one step below the root.

TBH you can install programs onto any drive and anywhere in that drive that you feel like, as long as the OS can see the drive they will still work.

But as 'Program Files' exists any way you find that most software devs insist on them being installed there, for the majority of programs on Vista & 7 this isn't a problem. But for older version of Poser as well as DS1 & 2 it was (and still is for some folk) a problem, as the main content/runtime was kept beside the program, so any time you saved your files would get shunted to your VirtualStore by DEP (Data Execution Prevention (XP users be glad M$ made a mess of it when they added it to SP2)) and the rest of the M$ nanny state security system. Iirc the main runtime was pretty much tied to Poser, so you needed to install it outside Program Files to stop that from happening, DS just needed it's content moved and linked back to.

Nowadays DS3 installs to Program Files while the supplied content gets installed to (My) Documents, and I believe that since P8 Poser has done something similar, at any rate it's main runtime is no longer tied to the program and can be put anywhere you feel like.

It's all down to personal choice, me I have DS3A in Program Files and Poser 6 in Program Files (x86), my content is in F drive where both DS3 & P6 access it.

My system consists of a Quad Core extreme, and 4 Hard drives (1 250gig, and 3 1tb, two of the 1tb drives are in a mirror array as D drive) running Win7 x64 Ultimate.  I do NOT install anything to my C: that is not OS related.  C is ONLY for my OS.  Period.  No exceptions.  I have relocated my users folder to D: as well.

On D: I have a "Programs" folder.  Under that , "Utilities", "Graphics", "Games", "Programming", etc.  This is where ALL progams install.

That said, my poser 2010 is in D:ProgramsGraphicsPoser2010 and Poser7 is in D:ProgramsGraphicsPoser7.

My D also holds a "Docs" folder root.

My runtimes are in D:DocsPoserPoser7Runtimes and D:DocsPoserPoser2010Runtimes.  My scene files get saved to D:DocsPoserDocsPoser2010 for example.

I run a domain controller so I have an active directory system.

My D:Docs folder is shared to authenticated users only.

I also have two NASs with 2 1tb drives as a mirrors in each one.  These are where I keep always available files and my backups including poser scenes.  I swap out 1 drive in each one each month as an offline/unplugged backup and let the NASs rebuild the mirrors with recycled prior month's swap drives.

Hope this helps.

Update: this is what I got from SM support:

I apologize for the confusion. The recommended installation process is to install the Program to the Program Files and Content to Shared Folder. This is the default install settings and causes no issues on Windows 7 or Vista and will work for XP as well. If you use this installation, all content that is modified is on the Shared Folder and is not impacted by Vista's or Windows 7's Security.

Some users are wrongly informed that some content must be installed into the Main Program Folder for it to function. This has not been required of content since the release of Poser 5 which allowed for external Libraries; and, since Poser 7 (ver 7.0.4.220) the option to have no Content in the Main Program Files Folder has been available. This was developed specifically for dealing with Vista and later Windows 7 and is the recommended installation for these operating systems.

There is something corrupted with your installation. The Queue Manager should be trying to load the FFRender64 on your system if the program was installed correctly, not FFRender. I believe this is due to the program not being installed to the Program Files Folder of a 64 Bit system.

I recommend you do a Clean reinstall using the default options. You will get the option to install both the 64 Bit and 32 Bit versions. One will install to the Program Files (the 64 Bit Version) and the other will install to the Program Files (x86) <You can opt out of this install, but if you use any older Python Scripts, I recommend installling, since some will not work under 64 Bit version without updates>

Let the content install to the Shared or Public Folder. You can then add additional Libraries to the Shared Folder as you install custom content. All currently available content for Poser can be installed to the Shared Folders and linked to Library from there.

If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

Both P5 and P6 did have trouble with relative paths calling files in external Runtimes - hence the advice to install V3 and V4 and so on in the main Runtime, in the application folder, but in P7 with the search behaviour set to shallow this was no longer necessary and since P7 SR3 it has been unnecessary without caveats.

Poser's search functions suck huge steaming brute force piles and giving that search it's own partition to inhabit helps a lot

Another reason not to install poser to the program files folder is if you deal with scripts. While you can run scripts from external folders linked into poser, it's not as easy or straight forward on some of them especially if they have multiple calls. Once you install Poser into your program folder, adding anything to it becomes  --- well, put nicely, a headache. I have a bunch of different scripts I've gathered (both paid for and freebies) and it never failed to cause trouble when trying to use them while Poser was installed 'where they said to put it'. I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling with the program in a directory off the root (c:poser X -- where x is my poser version)

Quote - The recommended installation process is to install the Program to the Program Files and Content to Shared Folder.

That was the option I chose because I keep ALL of my runtimes on a separate drive. Not a peep out of Windows ever. Then again, the first things I disabled when I installed Windows 7 Pro were UAC and the firewall. My Router is my firewall and I can fix my own system without windows nagging me. Been hacking windows since version 3.1!

And disabling UAC is simply a matter of taking that slider to the bottom, right?

Quote - And disabling UAC is simply a matter of taking that slider to the bottom, right?

Yepperoonie!

Thanks for that, Steve.

Much easier than it was in Vista that's for sure.

I put PP2012 on an external hard drive all by itself, and set up a file there to hold the content like V4 and such. It has simplified things considerably. Perhaps as I learn more and have additional needs I might have to change things.

John asked me the same thing when I asked for support once. I don't care what the convention is, I won't put Poser in Program Files unless I absolutely have to. When I had it in Program files I had lots of problems.

My poser is installed to 'e:smith microposer pro 2012'. It behaves well there.

Quote - And disabling UAC is simply a matter of taking that slider to the bottom, right?

Disabling UAC is a bad idea. Thats why it can not be disabled completely from the ui. To completely disable it requires mods to the registry, fat table permission mods, etc, etc... The slider disables part of it, but no where near all of it by any means. UAC is far more than that annoying popup caused by software that is not 100% UAC compliant.

Disabling UAC in Windows is sort of like giving everything in Linux access to an adminstraitor terminal window. Lots of things can be changed then, without your knowledge. With the slider to the right, the os can be modified by a virus or script.

Here is one of the writeups I send people to to read up on UAC compliance.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee732424%28v=ws.10%29.aspx

For those that do not want to read all of that, here is the most important line in the whole thing.

...Windows 64-bit applications are required to be compatible with UAC and to write data to the correct locations.

Which basically means that after the initial install, you need an administraitive token (password) to change any of the install, or write to the directory. (there is far more to it than that thou.)

If you are curious as to what needs to be done to make it 100% UAC compliant you can read this, and there is a lot to read. Tons actually.... There is more than directory permissions involved.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb757005.aspx (This link may take a while to open it gets read a lot)

All of my Poser installs are not on the op system drive, writing a program to require that is counter productive due to the increase in SSD usage now. On some systems there just is not room for much on the op system drive, so making it a requirement is just odd.

I guess I'm the odd one out here, but things are working for me.

I install Poser to my Program Files folder. It's a program, and that's what that folder is for.

I have UAC switched on, and it does its job for me. If I want, i can override it by using 'Run as Administrator', but I rarely need to do that.

I have one or two Python scripts myself, and they all go in the Program Files folder with the app too. No problems yet.

My content is, of course, stored elsewhere (in the recommended default location).

Issues or problems? None at all. All works fine.

Backups are easy too: I basically have two backups - C drive and Data drives. When I restore a backup of the C drive (rare, but it happens) I get all my apps back too, but no data gets overwritten.

I do install some non-UAC compatible programs to another drive, but they are few. They don't include Poser which, for me, runs nicely from Program Files.

So there :-)

I do run "all" my software from the Program Files, since I appreciate the protection by UAC. I do not want any user program to insert or alter any files in there without telling me beforehand, and being granted permission to do so. All software and scripts properly written for modern Windows environments should be able to handle that. Next to that, PF usually is excluded from the regular backup schemes.

So content should be in Users of any dedicated environment that is included in the backup schemes.

The only issue comes when running scripts which do require to be in the Poser executable environment (I can put them there, say Yes to the UAC message) AND which want to write in their own folder or so (instead of the User...AppData which is dedicated for that) AND don't handle the AppData redirection (as in: not well written for modern Windows). Only when all three hold, Poser cannot be in Program Files and hence is taken out of UAC protection. Old Poser versions themselves fall in this category as well. So does all (other) kind of software that wants to write in its own folder and does not adhere the Windows standards. This usually happens with some OpenSource where Linux code is translated into a Windows executable.

Any deviation from this is fine, for people who really know what they're up to. Novices, especially in PC / Windows usage, should not be encouraged to deviate. From performing professional systems maintenance on a regular basis I can assure you that the Biggest Bug sits between the chair and the keyboard, not behind the screen. Me myself included. It's that bug which is not captured by scanners, and that UAC is protecting us from. Help it to help you.

Just my opinion.

I am not meaning to take this thread away from poser, but seriously, I have had nothing but issue upon issue from Win7Pro 64bit since my new build! For a computer with more ram (*16GB), a better MB (*EVGA Z68 SLI) and GC (*EVGA GeForce GTX 560 1GB), and an i5 2500k quad processor, this thing is so damn slow compared to my GX745 Dell with XP Pro! Seriously if I could find a legit copy of XP Pro 64, I would dump Win7Pro in a heart beat.

I have considered reinstalling this system, and always did think I had missed something on the initial set up.... any thoughts>? How about Virtual Memory settings? I am sure I must have missed something...

Ariana

Snarlygribbly I sent you a site mail about my scene fixer issue...

:)

~A~

@FFD

since other people - myself included - are doing fine on Win7 I'm intended to look at the systems behavior first, using Taskmanager.

Which processes are consuming CPU cycles, which ones take the memory, especially when the thing feels slow? Do you need all the services, are all your drivers up to date, do you agree on the routines which are launched at startup, inspected / cleaned the machine / registry (with CCleaner etc)? Did you run tests and speedchecks on vital components (mem, disk, ...). Is the Windows Speed Index (or any other benchmark) according to expectations, and which components do deviate too much?

is it slow on all applications, is it Poser only, ...

Just to prevent you from performing Open Heart Surgery on a patient with just a cold.

Ahhh yes, actually you bring up two items I am unsure of with W7P... mainly scandisk/defrag and "Is the Windows Speed Index (or any other benchmark) according to expectations, and which components do deviate too much?" How do I test and determine how much is too much on this one? If it were XP Pro, I would know. But doing a seletive start up on W7P is an unknown as to what needs to be running and what doesn't.

I have and use CCleaner, and I also recently started using IOBit Advanced System Care 5... maybe that is something I need to remove. I also have always used MalwareBytes, but was reccomended to use the IOBit Malware Remover... another unknown.

Plus the real, weird thing, loading files when you open a HD... It takes a long time, there is a green shaded progress bar in the drive location bar at the top of the 'page'... plus it has "lost" several files of mine. At first I thought maybe a virus.... but nothing comes up in any of my scanning software.

Also I did reset my VM to the reccomended setting of 24549 from the original setting of 16366. I have just done this and need to reboot. But I wasn't sure on page filing settings.

ThanX a Bunch for this help... after 9+ years in XP Pro... I am really at a loss as I have only ever used one other OS and that was Win 98! So I never got my feet wet in even Vista before W7P!!!

Ariana

OK, I disabled most of the start up items like Adobe, AVG, QuickTime, etc, I also uninstalled all of the IObit items, because I suspected it was a resource hog. I got the VM upped on restart. So this seemed to have helped a bit!

I am going to run Scan Disk in a moment while I get lunch. Wish me luck! :)

And thank you!!!

Ariana

How do I test and determine...

well, you know what you've got. So if you've got a speedy disk and the tests are low on disks, then there is something wrong in that department. And so on. 

taskmanager, tab Performance, has a Resourcemanager button that shows you far more details on what the machine is doing.

VM by default is 150% of your RAM, no sense in going down from 25G to 16G

Notorious slow-downers are virus scanners and malware checkers, especially if more of them are running in parallel. I see IOBit malware remover, AVG, and perhaps even more (and I kicked out Norton and then AVG for wrecking performance, but that might be history). Use one for all protection, I'm running MS Security Essentials, it's good on performance.

Another trick is to start Windows in Safe-mode, it won't load most drivers and background processes. When that gives you the speedy machine, it's in that area. When it stays slow, it's the machine. XP is not the way.

Wish you luck :-)

Well all seemed fine at first, then I got a scare when I went to open my D and E HD's... have the folders looked empty! This has been an ongoing issue from the start of the clean install upon completion of my build. Any thoughts there? This happens a lot!

Otherwise all went well with scandisk.

Hmmm... AVG is a drag huh? I think I have MS Security, or at least know where to find it. But I never have installed it. I can do that.

Argh! Don't say it's the puter, I just built it 5 months ago. I can call over to EVGA and pick their brains as well....

Thank you for the help!!! :D

Ariana

Empty folders?  Disk not retaining files?  Almost sounds like a hard drive issues to me. 

AVG is very slow, I noticed it slowed my machines down big time. I switched over to Avast and was really surprised at the difference.

I'm running Windows 7 64 with 12 meg of Ram and my machine is very fast. I shut down all the unneccesary processes, and beleive me, there were a lot of them.

There is a Trojan that sets the Hidden property of files and folders, and ruins more. Hope you don't have it, it came right through my protection as well. Some months ago, I don't recall which one any more.

A lot of utilities come with the option to install some AV as well. I allways have to take care to switch it off. Having two or more protectors active is a performance nightmare, I found out.

Quote - AVG is very slow, I noticed it slowed my machines down big time. I switched over to Avast and was really surprised at the difference.

I'm running Windows 7 64 with 12 meg of Ram and my machine is very fast. I shut down all the unneccesary processes, and beleive me, there were a lot of them.

Thank you i will do that!!!

Ariana

Quote - Empty folders?  Disk not retaining files?  Almost sounds like a hard drive issues to me. 

Quote - There is a Trojan that sets the Hidden property of files and folders, and ruins more. Hope you don't have it, it came right through my protection as well. Some months ago, I don't recall which one any more.

A lot of utilities come with the option to install some AV as well. I allways have to take care to switch it off. Having two or more protectors active is a performance nightmare, I found out.

You are both wrong, I had to reset the default on the folders options. There is numerous posts on this on Google. It is a very common issue. *sigh

But one thing it did do is make my mind up to reinstall and carve down the OS to as little as possible to preserve my files. In fact it is entirely possible that for the time being I may revert back to XP Pro until I have enough facts to properly set up win7p. I may even go back to microsoft and make a major complaint and get them to upgrade me to ultimate. I have actually had enough issues with 7 that Microsoft offered it to me just 5 weeks ago. Could be my version (*disk) is corrupt too. I am not inexperienced on a computer. In fact in XP I am quite techy... so the leap should not be so drastic, and should not involve this many issues. At this rate i might even look into Carbonite as a temp solution to holding my files safe.

Thank you all for the help with this. I might be offline for a week while I fix this issue...

HugZ!
Ariana

every computer i've had since Poser 4, i've made a dedicated hard drive petition (drive e:  :) ) for poser.

i can't imagine what i'd be doing with my life if i didn't have poser.

hope things work out, see ya!!

"I may even go back to microsoft and make a major complaint and get them to upgrade me to ultimate."

that won't solve the problems you are having. all win7's use the same core, it's just the features that change. if you have an issue with Win7 home, you'll have the same issue with Win7 Ultimate.

I have win 7 pro and yes they agreed to upgrade me free.

But I have also been searching for XP Pro 64, it is out there, I just need to be sure it is a good product key so microsoft can register it to me. They no longer give it out, it never was for sale, but almost like a beta OS.

I have 90% of poser on my E drive, just not the program. I thought because of Adobe Air it could not install except on the main program drive (*C:).

OK, back to the files transferring.

Ariana

i have the program on drive e.  with win7, the air that came with pp12 didn't work, i had to d/l a newer version.

when i copied my runtimes over from my vista pc, i had to delete poser.ini before the library would find it.  i had installed the 64bits fresh, but copied over main runtime and d/l runtime.

there's a thread with all the woes of the install.  :lol:

I am with Snarlygribbly here. Installed Poser to the default locations (program files for the program and user/public folder for PoserPro runtime) and have had no issues at all on Windows 7 and I have UAC enabled. It is running Air and Flash64 without problems. I have my main runtime on another drive which I always attach to the new version of Poser.

I used to run Windows XP 64bit for a long time. You will have more compatibility issues with XP64 as with Windows 7 64bit. The compatibility with 32 bit programs and hardware is better and if needed you can use the included VM to install the 32bit version (which I never have needed to do).

Thank you for this input wimvdb! This is valuable info. I am just frustrated  with all of the weird problems that I have never experienced with XP before.

Ariana