Is it possible to run two copies of Poser simultaneously on the same computer? Either as two separate sessions, or having two copies of the program installed in different directories?

I had Poser 8 previously installed and tried to run it at the same time as Poser Pro 2012 but it didn't seem to work and Poser 8 just wouldn't load. With a program like Bryce, it seems you're able to run two or more sessions at once. In other words, if you click on the Bryce icon again, it opens another session, and you could work in both of them on two different scenes.

I'd like to be able to do this in Poser. Sometimes it takes a long time to either clothify or render something that I'd like to be working on a different thing in the meantime. However, I can't, because Poser is occupied with that activity. I know clicking on the Poser Pro 2012.exe file twice doesn't open it in a separate session. But what about if I installed another copy in another directory or on an external hard drive, and then ran both of them using the same shared runtime?

The only concern I have about running two copies of Poser is that even one of them can be so taxing on the systems resources that I can't imagine what two of them would do.

Has anyone done this successfully, and if so, how exactly?

Thanks

Maybe someone will advise if ok to install Poser on external HD?

I've never been able to trick the computer into doing two Posers open at the same time. You don't state your memory configuration or OS. If you are 32 bit, then it would be pointless to try, because the OS takes up half of the 4 gig limit, and Poser takes the other half (pretty much... especially when rendering.)

I've never tried to install Poser to an external, vitachick, but I believe the installer gives the option to install to a drive other than C:, so I suspect it would work. Moving it from computer to computer probably would not, because the registry entires and dlls et all would not be on the second computer.

Perhaps Cooper or BB can chime in with a more difinitive answer.

edit

From the EULA:

"Except as otherwise expressly permitted in the Documentation, you will only use the Program on a single computer, meaning that you must treat the Program “like a book.” "Like a

book" means that the Program may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved
from one computer to another so long as no possibility exists of the Program being used at more
than one computer simultaneously. "

My reading of this prohibits the program being installed on more than one computer at a time, even if it is you using both computers.

$.02

I sometimes run Poser in a virtual machine for testing script compatibility with other versions of Poser than the one I have installed on my PC. In this way I can run multiple copies at the same time.

Quote - I've never been able to trick the computer into doing two Posers open at the same time. You don't state your memory configuration or OS. If you are 32 bit, then it would be pointless to try, because the OS takes up half of the 4 gig limit, and Poser takes the other half (pretty much... especially when rendering.)

I've never tried to install Poser to an external, vitachick, but I believe the installer gives the option to install to a drive other than C:, so I suspect it would work. Moving it from computer to computer probably would not, because the registry entires and dlls et all would not be on the second computer.

Perhaps Cooper or BB can chime in with a more difinitive answer.

---

edit

---

From the EULA:

"Except as otherwise expressly permitted in the Documentation, you will only use the Program on a single computer, meaning that you must treat the Program “like a book.” "Like a

book" means that the Program may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved
from one computer to another so long as no possibility exists of the Program being used at more
than one computer simultaneously. "

My reading of this prohibits the program being installed on more than one computer at a time, even if it is you using both computers.

$.02

Thanks. I'm using a Del Inspiron 15R which I think is Windows 64 bit, and also Windows 7.

Poser prohibits use on more than one computer. But I'm not wanting to put it on more than one computer but on the SAME computer, just to open it twice so that I can work on things in parallel instead of series otherwise it just takes too long to do anything. My other laptop is so old that it couldn't even handle Poser anyway.

Quote - I sometimes run Poser in a virtual machine for testing script compatibility with other versions of Poser than the one I have installed on my PC. In this way I can run multiple copies at the same time.

Do you mean like in Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 (which is a virtual machine)? But will Windows XP mode be able to handle Poser Pro 12?  And could I even use the same shared runtime between a virtual machine and a real one?

You're not allowed to run the same version of poser twice, however you can run 2 different version of poer at the same time. If you run the same version of poser of more then once at the same time, you run the risk of having your serial number blocked.

Quote - You're not allowed to run the same version of poser twice, however you can run 2 different version of poer at the same time. If you run the same version of poser of more then once at the same time, you run the risk of having your serial number blocked.

I see. Thanks.

But that's what I was trying to do originally anyway - running Poser 8 and Poser Pro 12, as I have them both installed on my computer. They're obviously not the same versions. However, Poser 8 wouldn't load whenever Poser Pro 12 was in session. Is there a reason for that?

I'm running Poser Pro 2010 and Poser Pro 2012 at the same time, no problem at all, that would be about the same as running 8 and Pro 2012 at the same time. I'd say Poser 8 and 2012 at the same time should work. I'm running Windows 7 64bit, perhaps the OS you run has something to do with it as well?

Ok well I uninstalled Poser 8 and then reinstalled it to a different directory. It seems to be able to run simultaneously with Poser Pro 2012 now. So that's solved.

However, looking at the Poser 8 interface after so long, it looks a little primitive. Is there no way in Poser 8 to have the editing tools in 2 rows of 6 instead of a long row of 12? It stretches across the screen too much and takes up too much space. Same with the document display style toolbar.

And is there no way to have the parameter dials display permanently under the library on the bottom right hand side of the screen as in Poser Pro 2012? I also wish the main window didn't float on Poser 8.

And what about the main menu at the top which says Pose, Material, Face, Hair, Cloth etc? Can that somehow be pulled over more to the left on Poser 8 so that it resembles Poser Pro 12? It's too much in the centre of the screen and not an efficient use of space.

Thanks

Quote - I'd like to be able to do this in Poser. Sometimes it takes a long time to either clothify or render something that I'd like to be working on a different thing in the meantime.

Have you tried rending in the background?  This allows you to work on current project while your initial setup is rendering.  Won't work with clothify though.

Quote - > Quote - I'd like to be able to do this in Poser. Sometimes it takes a long time to either clothify or render something that I'd like to be working on a different thing in the meantime.

Have you tried rending in the background?  This allows you to work on current project while your initial setup is rendering.  Won't work with clothify though.

Hadn't really used rendering in background because I never know where the background render is stored. It just seems to disappear and isn't even in my recent renders. Is it located somewhere else? And under what file name since it hasn't been saved? I tried it again now and I just can't find that background render.

Rendering in the background doesn't save the file. It just holds it in memory until you export the image. It's like normal rendering only you can still work on the scene.

So it doesn't appear anywhere, but if I were to click export image then I would see it somewhere once saved?

I always have a version of Poser 7 installed (usually Poser Pro) to assure that my cloth are compatible with as many as possible. There is no problem running the old Poser Pro together with Poser Pro 2012 on windows 7 or 8 at the same time. That goes for both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. It can be helpful to have both versions alongside to solve some problem. Another reason for have an old version of Poser lying around is that many products no longer function in 2012 such as for instance PhilC's BVH_helper.

Poser is using temporary files to reduce memory usage (large undo action, FireFly mip maps, etc) and writes those to a version specific location. Running two different versions of Poser at the same time should be safe I think, running the same version of Poser twice can lead to data loss or even crashes when one instance tries to delete or write to temporary files that the other instance expects to remain untouched.

Any EULA that say you can only run it on one computer at a time is subject to scrutiny.

By the wording, you should be able to run as many instances of the same program as you want to as long as they are all running on the same machine.

They will have to be run within protected virtual machines for it to work. (VM's are memory and write protected unless set up otherwise, but network access will need modified in most cases for various reasons.)

In a virtual machine there is no way that the program can overwrite any temp files because none of them are ever stored in the same spot.

The one run in the main operating system will write to root.

IE: C:Users:Owner:AppData:Roaming:Poser Pro

And all the virtual machines will write to root.

IE: C:Users:Owner:AppData:Roaming:Poser Pro

Even thou the paths are exactly the same, they are not in the same spot. One is a directory, the other is in a file.

That is the primary purpose of a virtual machine, to completely seperate a program from the main operating system.

*"By the wording, you should be able to run as many instances of the same program as you want to as long as they are all running on the same machine." *

I agree, though how they interpret it may be something else :-) The 'book' comparison EULA was conceived long before virtual machines.. I don't think I've run across one that addresses the point, but I'm sure they exist. I have seen agreements that limit the number of cores you can use.   Originally, AFAIK, VMs didn't even support hardware video acceleration so the issue was somewhat moot for many graphics applications. With today's multi-core and even multi video card systems you can do a lot more. If they want to limit you to one instance per system, real or virtual, they need to state that explicitly because its probably going to come up more and more.

Quote - After rendering, you can go to Windows on the taskbar and open the pull down menu.  Go down to recent renders and open the render panel.  There you will find all your cached rendered images.  Depending how many image cached as defined in the General Preferences, you can click on any one, bring it into the render window and export it out in whatever format you like.  As you reach the cache limit, earlier renders will be automatically deleted.

Thanks. I never see the background-rendered image in the recent renders though, and I have that panel open all the time. I don't know why it doesn't appear. That's why I said that I don't know where to look for it, because it doesn't seem to be anywhere. The only time something appears in the recent renders panel is if I render the normal way. I don't know if something is not set up correctly.

Quote - The 'book' comparison EULA was conceived long before virtual machines.. /quote]  

Virtual Machines first came into usage in the 60s, and that was long before the EULA was written.

Sorry, I rather meant before VM technology became widely used by consumers in the context of running a second OS instance and applications on their home systems. I still have my copy of the originsl VMWare Workstation ca. late 90s and before that I ran an MSDOS emulator on my Atari ST ca. late 80s - early 90s - though Im not sure about its technical standing vis a vis a true VM. IIRC, I first read the book comparison r.e. multiple copies of software used by Microsoft (?) years before that. Perhaps my timeline is still off though. 

N.B. The first reference I found (in a very cursory search),  to books and software copying  was in the 1981 issue of Compute! magazine (which also touted the release of the Commodore Vic 20(1981). Don't know if it was in any EULAs at the time, but I doubt most home computer users of the era had any idea what a VM was :-)  

There's a difference between the emulator and VM. The emulator 'takes' over the whole machine and becomes the operating system, while VM runs inside the operating system.

I was at a second hand store yesterday and they had a Commodore Vic 20 there, brought back some memories. My first one was a Commodore 16, I bought it together with my brother. Later on I moved the the MSX and ended up with a MSX2 in the end, before moving unto the pc. I was torn between getting a MSX Turbo R or PC at the time end ended up with an 286 running at 20Mhz.... it was very expensive, but the fastest one in the city, I was the only one running that kind of machine at the time. Even the company I worked at was jealous..... until the 386 became common, but even the first 386's weren't as fast, but obviously could do more then mine. Good old times..... MS DOS and no windows in sight yet.

*"There's a difference between the emulator and VM. The emulator 'takes' over the whole machine and becomes the operating system, while VM runs inside the operating system."*Sounds reasonable. I wonder where that places things like the ST or Timex 2068 'emulators' I have. They don't take over the machine and they're emulating an entirely different hardware and software architecture. Are they really VMs?

I Never owned a Commodore or even had much chance to play with one. I went from the Timex to the ST and then a PC. Consolidation has been a great thing. OTOH, there was a certain charm to those old distinct Commodores, TIs, Ataris etc.  

Well technology has changed a lot from those days. VM is running multiple OS's on a machine, while emulating the ST or C64 and such can be just running a bit of software that can run open the old applications and games for those older machine.  But it depends on the emulator, some indeed VM's, but they name them emulators, but in reality they are VM's running the old OS on your machine.

It's a fine line, since computers can handle a lot more today then in those days. Back at that time, most of those home computers like the ST, C64, MSX did not have the hardware to run another OS inside their OS, so they had to emulate. When PC's became more powerfull they could do it, but the word emulator stuck, since it's much cooler then virtual machine. When emulators came out first, they took over the whole pc and trying to switch between a real windows application and an emulator would either cause a crash or the pc would become completely unresponsive. But now we can assign applications to their own memery space much better, so it isn't a problem anymore. Some of the emulators are still written as real emulators, but the pc it's running on changed so much that the emulator doesn't need to take over the whole thing. But even with those, I've noticed that some of them aren't to happy when you start switching applications a lot. While the ones written as VM's, but just called emulator for name sake, behave much better.

At any rate, they're and at times it's really fun to play those old games or look at those old simple applications, that were easy to use and actually made sense. They indeed do have a certain charm.

My tutorial on using Poser software may be of help:

http://www.book.artbeeweb.nl/?p=162

My notes:

in case of forking out for rendering purposes, the best to do is to use Queue Rendering. You may be able to run on other machines as well, without licence issues.

in case of forking out for cloth sim purposes, you can run another Poser in parallel to PPro2012, they don't differ that much in cloth room. Remind that P8 is 32 bit and can't handle more than 2Gb/3Gb memory anyway.

Hi aRtBee since you are here I take the opportunity to ask something I always wondered.

The version that is called "PoserPro" and looks like Poser 7 but is 64bit (actually both 64 and 32bit) released May 2008 from Smith Micro is that Poser 7 or Poser 8?

?

This is the ideal version to run together with Poser 9/Poser Pro 2012 IMO since it is 64bit.

"since it is 64bit´.."

I mean 64bit rendering engine!

hi Vintorix

Poser Pro = Poser 7 + Collada + plugins for C4D and Maya, dd may 2008
Poser 8 is Aug 4, 2009 - and has a renewed interface indeed
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser 

Do note that Poser Pro itself is 32 bit, but the firefly renderer only is 64 bit. PPro2010 is 64 bit for Windows only, PPro2012 is 64 bit for Windows and Mac (ref: http://poser.smithmicro.com/ComparePoserSoftware.pdf) So when it comes to 64 bit rendering, Queue Manager (2012) is the best companion to PPro2012 in my opinion.

Also note that OP mentiones to have Poser 8 installed. Which is better than Poser Pro. Since Poser 8 is already "LAA enabled" it will utilise 3Gb user ram when running in a 64bit OS.

all the best

Thank you for clearing that up. So PoserPro 2008 is an kind of version of Poser 7 then. I still prefer to have that one installed together with Poser pro 2012 for compatibility purposes though. I realize that a content provider aught to have all versions of Poser for testing but somewhere you have to draw the line. And PoserPro is small and lean and rock solid and a good compromise. It also perfect for loading all kinds of old content.

Quote - Any EULA that say you can only run it on one computer at a time is subject to scrutiny.

By the wording, you should be able to run as many instances of the same program as you want to as long as they are all running on the same machine.

That's an interesting note.  The PP2010 EULA, which I happen to have handy, does indeed specify "a single copy of the Program (except as expressly permitted in the Documentation) solely for your own internal business operations on a single computer" Multiple virtual machines could access a single physical copy either on a shared disk volume or by way of symbolic links and not violate the letter of the EULA.  However, in practice, there is the serial number issue, but that's not insurmountable....

Quote - I'm running Poser Pro 2010 and Poser Pro 2012 at the same time, no problem at all, that would be about the same as running 8 and Pro 2012 at the same time. I'd say Poser 8 and 2012 at the same time should work. I'm running Windows 7 64bit, perhaps the OS you run has something to do with it as well?

Ok I installed a copy of Poser Pro 2010 on the same laptop as the one with my Poser Pro 2012 and have managed to run the two of them simultaneously. However, there still seems to be problems of a different sort now.

If I work in PP 2012 and want to insert an element (eg a prop or figure) into the scene, it will not insert there but into the PP2010 scene instead. Conversely, if I want to insert something into the PP2010 scene it inserts it into the 2012 scene. It seems whichever one I had open first will become the primary Poser into which everything is inserted.

Why is there this connection between the two? I want the two to run independently of each other, otherwise it defeats the purpose of two running at the same time if I can't work in both.

Do you ever have this problem and if not, how have you managed to get round it?

Anyone else know why this is happening? 

It is probably doing that because both poser.ini files are using the same port number for the library.

Quote - It is probably doing that because both poser.ini files are using the same port number for the library.

How do I diassociate them so that they run independently? Is it possible to do that?

There are settings for it in the ini file but I have never tried it to see.

Setting on to use the internal and one to use the external may be an option as well

Where exactly is this Poser.ini file located?

It doesn't seem to be showing up in any searches. Is it actually called that?

And how do I change these settings?

I didn't have this problem (obviously) when Poser Pro 2010 was installed on another computer, nor when I've also had Poser 8 installed at the same time as Poser Pro 2012. Both PP2012 and P8 run independently of each other.

This problem only seems to be with PP2010 when on the same computer as PP2012. Why would they use the same port number for the libraries?

Thanks. 

ini's, xxml prefs etc are in the (user)appdataroamingposer... folders, which tend to be hidden so they won't reveil their contents in searches as well.

PPro2010 and PP2012 have similar Lib handling, especially when you use the same internal / external setting on both. That may cause interference. Same probably holds when deploying other Lib software like P3dO.

The question remains why you do need two Posers at once both requiring the Library.

In my workflow I build my scene in PPro2012 until the moment that I want a seperate process for cloth sim or for rendering. When for rendering, I launch the scene towards Queue manager, I don't need another Poser for that and it saves a lot of memory resources. When for cloth sim, I launch the scene in PPro2010 but then I don't need any Library or so.

So: it pays off to establish a clean workflow first, and manage your resources properly (like setting process / CPU priorities when running evering in parallel). As I just happen not to have your problem in the first place, I don't have to solve it either. Saves my day.

have fun.

I too was wondering why 2 different versions.  Consider that PP2010 and PP2012 have different features and different Python Script iterations.  You can't do weightmapping, SSS on PP2010, and compiled python script from PP2010 will not run properly in PP2012.  With these dissimilarities, you will run into problems mixing content with incompatible features.

I'm trying to work on several different scenes at once with completely different elements. Not everything needs to have exactly the same features. I just need to be able to work on more than one document at a time rather than doing one, sending it to queue manager or background rendering and then working on another in the meantime.

I just need two different versions of Poser that can work independently of each other in their own right.

I've found the ini and xxml files but am not sure exactly how I should edit it and which one relates to which and what I should change all the settings to.

It must be possible to run PP2010 and PP2012 simultaneously since aeilkema mentioned earlier that he or she is doing exactly that and apparently not running into this problem.

okay, I just tested around a bit.

First launch PPro 2010, then PPro 2012. In this case, the PPro2010 Lib sends stuff to PPro2010 while the PPro2012 Lib sends stuff to PPro 2012. This is what we want.

First launch Ppro2012, then Ppro2010. In this case the Ppro2012 Lib sends stuff to PPro2012 while the PPro2010 Lib also sends stuff to PPro2012.

Apparently, the PPro20102 Lib sends stuff to PPro2012 while the PPro2010 Lib sends stuff to the PPro which was launched first.

Simple solution: launch PPro2010 first.

Switching the PPro (2012) Lib to Embedded does not make a difference.

Quote - I too was wondering why 2 different versions.  Consider that PP2010 and PP2012 have different features and different Python Script iterations.  You can't do weightmapping, SSS on PP2010, and compiled python script from PP2010 will not run properly in PP2012.  With these dissimilarities, you will run into problems mixing content with incompatible features.

A lot of people do not use or need these features at all, so they will have no problems at all. I can totally understand why someone would want to run 2 versions at the same time, be it for different reasons. I run 3 versions at the same time at times, P6, PP2010 & PP2012, for testing content purposes though.

Also, I've never used weightmapping in Poser at all and I have no need to use SSS at either, so I do not buy content using it. Besides a lot of the content that used SSS also gives you a version that doesn't use SSS with it, otherwise the vendor would loose out sales. All the scripts I do use have a 2010 & 2012 version. So, I can run PP2010 and 2012 at the same time whenever I want. If I want realistic renders, I switch to Vue and import my poser content there and have a way more realistic rendering engine then poser and all of it's gimmicks can offer me.

People make way to many assumptions at these forums thinking everyone use poser the same way and uses all the features it offers. You cannot just assume everyone uses poser the same way you do, poser has many uses.

Quote - okay, I just tested around a bit.

First launch PPro 2010, then PPro 2012. In this case, the PPro2010 Lib sends stuff to PPro2010 while the PPro2012 Lib sends stuff to PPro 2012. This is what we want.

First launch Ppro2012, then Ppro2010. In this case the Ppro2012 Lib sends stuff to PPro2012 while the PPro2010 Lib also sends stuff to PPro2012.

Apparently, the PPro20102 Lib sends stuff to PPro2012 while the PPro2010 Lib sends stuff to the PPro which was launched first.

Simple solution: launch PPro2010 first.

Switching the PPro (2012) Lib to Embedded does not make a difference.

But that doesn't seem to work as I tried that yesterday several times. Even if I launch PP2010 first, it still has the PP2012 library automatically and the 2010 one never shows up. It also automatically contains an additional external runtime which I normally use for 2012, even though I never added it to 2010. Even when I've just installed PP2010, it contains these two libraries in its factory state. I should have to add these myself manually (which should be the case for any Poser program).  

And even when I did launch PP2010 first yesterday, and then opened 2012 second, 2012 still sent stuff to 2010, whereas if I launched 2012 first, then 2010 would send stuff to 2012.

So it seems really, when I'm launching PP2010, it's actually launching another copy of 2012 somehow instead of an independent copy of 2010 which is unconnected.

I just ran both PP2010 & PP2012 together on my computer and they are distinctly separate although I had to open the PP2010 Library from the Windows menu at the taskbar.  Content loaded into each without any problems.  Installation for each app generates separate folders with separate dedicated files.  I am assuming that installation was allowed to place those files in their default folders.

Quote - I just ran both PP2010 & PP2012 together on my computer and they are distinctly separate although I had to open the PP2010 Library from the Windows menu at the taskbar.  Content loaded into each without any problems.  Installation for each app generates separate folders with separate dedicated files.  I am assuming that installation was allowed to place those files in their default folders.

Yes they were put into their separate default folders.

I tried reinstalling PP2010 yet again, and then opening it first. The first time round it opened as 2010 and then the library came up. I tried inserting content into the document window and it inserted it into 2010. I thought maybe it was finally working. Howver, I opened up PP2012 afterwards and it wasn't opening with the PP2012 library but the 2010 one. So when I tried to insert content into 2012 it went into the 2010 program.

When I closed down PP2010 and opened it up again, only the library controls came up. The actual PP2010 document window technically was there, but whenever I clicked on the icon I could never access it. I can't get into the 2010 window now for some reason, but the library always launches.

So the two Posers do seem to be somehow connected on my computer. Whichever one I launch first becomes the primary Poser and the second one opened is just another copy of that and not its own separate and independent program.

Sounds like you need to talk to BB.

the thing I recognise here, is that when I'm running PP2010 as well as PP2012 I cannot have the Library open (in external mode, using AIR) for both PP's at the same time.

If I want to use Lib-2012 I either have to close Lib-2010 first, OR I have to redefine Lib-2012 as Embedded (in the preferences). So if I launch PP2010 first which opens its Lib window at startup, and then launch PP2012 (which usually opens its Lib window on startup too), Lib-2012 will not open now. When I launch PP2010, close its Lib window, and then launch PP2012 then Lib-2012 does open at startup.

Perhaps this helps.

I don't use poser library so never had this problem, I'm using library xl and with that one I can run 2 copies at the same time without a problem. I would suggest getting an external library for at least one of the poser versions to overcome this problem.

Quote - the thing I recognise here, is that when I'm running PP2010 as well as PP2012 I cannot have the Library open (in external mode, using AIR) for both PP's at the same time.

If I want to use Lib-2012 I either have to close Lib-2010 first, OR I have to redefine Lib-2012 as Embedded (in the preferences). So if I launch PP2010 first which opens its Lib window at startup, and then launch PP2012 (which usually opens its Lib window on startup too), Lib-2012 will not open now. When I launch PP2010, close its Lib window, and then launch PP2012 then Lib-2012 does open at startup.

Perhaps this helps.

Hmm... the library seems to already be defined as embedded in the preferences on PP2012. I think it might be that way by default. It doesn't seem to behave the way you're describing though.

What's the difference between embedded and external anyway? Where exactly would the external be located if I were using it with that preference and how would Poser (either version) or their libraries operate differently?

Quote - I don't use poser library so never had this problem, I'm using library xl and with that one I can run 2 copies at the same time without a problem. I would suggest getting an external library for at least one of the poser versions to overcome this problem.

What is library xl? Which Poser version do you use that for?

For Poser 8, 9, PP2010 and 2012. The script let's you choose which version you run, 8 (and 2010 same base) or 9 (and 2012). I do not use the poser library at all, I really dislike it.

You can use the library manager they sell at RDNA as well, some say it's very good, never tried it, since I'm content with what I have. There's also the p3do explorer and a few others, even free ones.