I wouldn't recommend letting the download manager update your poser with a new service pack, unless they change how it behaves. It replaces all of your customizations, including those for EZSkin (and probably others). It's kind of annoying. 

Also, if you find it crashing after it tries to verify your S/N, it's probably because the number was invalid. When I copied mine, apparently I had not copied one of the characters and it kept crashing. It wasn't until I went to the website and it complained about the S/N being invalid that I realized that I hadn't correctly copied the number over. 

Anyway, in case you are ready to update, I thought you might like to be warned of these little details. I haven't really had a chance to really try out the new SP. Hopefully it fixed the issues with M4 and super-conforming clothing. 

Is there an option to download and install and update manually rather than use the download manager? I really don't think I wanna use that any more than I wanna use Daz's. LOL

Laurie

I believe it restores the stock customizations to maintain compatiblity with changes in the program. Otherwise you'd have legacy changes that no longer might work with a feature enhancment or fix.. and then you'd still have to do a complete wipe and reinstall.

You could always back up your changes, and then dump them back on top of a new update, but again, that might affect functionality.

When I enter an invalid serial number I think mine quits as well. Thats not a crash though, thats a program exiting and install because of user error with an incorrect serial number.

You have an option to save updates, and have to select install seperately after a download. You could easily just download the update, quit the installer, and then do a manual install of the update if you chose to.

(I asked them about that a month or two ago.)

Quote - I believe it restores the stock customizations to maintain compatiblity with changes in the program. Otherwise you'd have legacy changes that no longer might work with a feature enhancment or fix.. and then you'd still have to do a complete wipe and reinstall.

The service packs don't do that. I suspect that the installer is just an updated full installer, which would write default preferences, largely for the reasons you pointed out. But, in this case, the download manager should have known I already had the program installed, and should have used the service pack instead of a full installer. At least, that is what seems correct to me. They do offer the SP on the web, and I did test to verify that it didn't overwrite the preferences and settings. 

Quote - When I enter an invalid serial number I think mine quits as well. Thats not a crash though, thats a program exiting and install because of user error with an incorrect serial number.

I'm not trying to be contrary, but if that is actually the correct behavior, they need to spend a little more time considering usability. If the serial number is invalid, why not pop up a box that says so before disappearing? Ideally, they would present you with the dialog to re-enter the serial number and a message indicating the one already entered is invalid. Then you could compare it with the correct one and fix it if there is a typo (hopefully no one is actually typing these things in anymore) or a copy/paste error. This is just standard practice in computing these days.

All in all, it's not a big deal. If you want to keep your settings, it's use SP that you can download from the website. It's much smaller anyway. 

I download the SR the same as I did for other versions.  Went to SMS site, clicked on the link, ended up at CP, added the SR to the cart after giving the serial and downloaded it.

The same as previous versions, the installer asks you if you want to keep your pref or not.

what I do is copy my python folder elsewhere.  then when I get a new version of poser I merge the new python folder into it.  that will replace any old files with new but won't delete the old files, then I just replace the python folder in the SM poser folder with my almalgamated folder.

Then I find the preferences.  On a mac they are in application support, but may not be obvious until after you open poser, play and close it.

In application support the preferences for poser 10 include a folder with your old preferences from previous versions. I put back all the missing things and voila, back to normal well apart from the library unless you want to copy back that preference too.

One caviet.  Poser installer makes the permissions too strict on the mac, so before I do any of the above I make permissions for the poser pro folder to be read write for the folder and all the subfolders.

I hope this was the last version we ever see that download manager ever again.

insert a paragraph of swearing here

i quite like it.

I can't imagine why, but I'm sure there are more people who like it, so I guess I can hope for an option to not use it next time.

(LaurieA) 

Quote -   Is there an option to download and install and update manually rather than use the download manager? 

     You can run the DLM to download the SR, then look in C:Users(account username)AppDataRoamingSmithMicroDLMPSXPwin for the Poser installer exe;  ignore the version file.

Thanks sea.... I'm kinda disappointed that SM decided to go this route. I'm not stupid and I know how to download and install Poser. I guess I know WHY they did it tho ;). Seem that a lot of ppl DO have trouble installing it. Still, I wish they'd made it easier for those of us who have never have any problems in that direction.

Laurie

I was great full for the manager Actually. A storm came up and I had to shut down my computer in the middle of the download. Was glad I didn't have to restart everything. Having a slower Internet connection makes being able to stop and downloads nice. I would have preferred having a choice. I would have preferred the new content be in a separate file. Why should I have to download several hundred megs for 2 new hair styles and a few skullcaps?

Too bad they didn't make the use of the download manager optional.  The download manager has it's advantages for some but not everyone.

Finally I have downloaded and installed everything. The most convoluted an idiotic installation I ever experienced. Is it safe now to uninstall the Download Manager and move the install files to a better place? (And not on my precious SSD hard disk which the DM placed everything giving me no choice! grr)

Can I still reinstall or move Poser Pro 2014 to another computer without the Download Manager? Can I have all the install files in one folder?

feh dims and dLms

only my netbook has internet.  exposing my workhorse compy to the internet is sooo not gonna happen.

Quote - Finally I have downloaded and installed everything. The most convoluted an idiotic installation I ever experienced. Is it safe now to uninstall the Download Manager and move the install files to a better place? (And not on my precious SSD hard disk which the DM placed everything giving me no choice! grr)

Can I still reinstall or move Poser Pro 2014 to another computer without the Download Manager? Can I have all the install files in one folder?

Hi,

I wasn't happy about the DL manager as well, but in all fairness, it does offer the possibility to specify where the downloaded files go.

On the positive side, it downloaded installers which were pre-patched to the current revision. With earlier Poser releases you had to install the original distribution and then patch manually.

Best regards,

   Michael

i is skepticle about SR's, i feel like they don't go through the same thorough testing as the app release.  when they broke something as major as wind dynamics, it reinforced the feeling.

i don't have high-end app to fall back on, i need poser to work consistantly and be stable. 

RE: heads up -

The DLM will indeed let you pick where you want the installers to be stored. I run an SSD too, and don't store them on my main C drive.

Once you've downloaded the installers, you can move them onto any other machine or let the DLM run the installation for you. If you want to manually run the Poser installer, just simply be sure all the installers are in the same folder, then run the application installer.

The SRs are as equally tested as the main app, and we actually have more leeway with timelines for the SRs than we do with a new full version. That said, features do sometimes get broken when fixing something else, and that can get missed by the internal QA team and external beta. But it gets addressed in the next SR, and if it's impactful to lots of people, we'll do a .1 version of the SR. Each subsequent Service Release gets better, adds stability, fixes issues, and sometimes roll out new features.

For reference we are working on an SR4 now. Poser 10 and Pro 2014 will be with us for a while, so we're keeping the SRs moving forward.

Attached is a screen cap of the updated version of the Download Manager soon to be released. There's a new tab in the DLM that will show just the Updates. Whatever serial number you enter will show updates for that version. I'm running a beta serial, so I get the full beta installers. Enter a german serial, and you'll get just German, Poser 10 serials reveal Poser 10 installers...

what's so wrong with right-click, save-as?

right-click greatest invention since binary was discovered with a key and a kite

I am HAPPY to hear about SR4 coming... Will it

fix mirroring morphs and weight map issues?

fix falloff mat spheres double weighting vertices?

fix weightmapped edges of actors being double weighted?

fix morphs to be the 100% the same on the body and actors when split?

fix joint rotation when axis switched on the child node of the parent switched?

You know, 90% of the issues that have been around for a few versions? That would be great! Us content creators would love some love when it comes to fixing common issues reported by many many people to SM support!