Quote - Ignore manelystanley on issues about DIM and CMS, there is nothing evil or nefarious about either.

I agree. Don't be frightened about DIM or CMS.  I have been using both with little problems.

I view DIM as a huge improvement.  It makes purchasing and installing new products much easier.  DAZ also regularly sends out updates to fix issues with products. I get several updates per week. Some weeks it is 10 or more. (I have a lot of DAZ products.)  Many of these updates are for new products that were recently released, but some are for older products.  People who are not using DIM generally don't find out about these update.

CMS has been using a data base that requires a data base service to run on your computer at all times. There have been problems with this data base getting corrupted occasionally. DAZ is now transitioning over to use a PostgreSQL data base that does not require a server process. When you start DAZ Studio or DIM, the PostgreSQL data base will start. It is hoped that the PostgreSQL data base will be more reliable, but all data bases can get corrupted.  If your data base gets corrupted, you just have to reset it and re-import all the metal data to rebuild it. If you have created your own categories to organize your data as I have, then you have to remember to dump the user meta data regularily so it can be restored along with the product metadata. 

I have been creating my own categories for the last 2 years or so. In that time my data base got corrupted once.  I just rebuilt it from the meta data and the user data I had saved. Anoying, but not a big deal. If you don't create your own categories, you don't need to worry about saving the user data.

CMS is usually connected with Smart Content. I hardly ever use Smart Content, but I think it is useful when you first start using DAZ Studio.  You will need to learn how to use the Content tab and find products that do not have Smart Content, like all the products sold in this store or any store other than DAZ. Even in the DAZ store, most of the old V4/M4 products do not have Smart Content. 

As to your original problem with not being able to find the characters and other content, DAZ Studio comes with the Genesis, Genesis 2 Female and Genesis 2 Male characters, along with a few clothes, hair, and sets. Those are separate free products that you have to download and install. If you are using DIM, it should have offered to download and install them. 

If you downloaded and installed them, and still cannot see them in DAZ Studio, then maybe the DAZ Studio libraries are not setup in the same place DIM is installing.

Recently DIM has been getting disconnected from the DAZ server frequently while I'm downloading a alot of products. I think this is because of my flakey internet connection (I know it is flakey because other applications get disconnected all the time too.)  DIM could be made more falt tolerant to just automatically reconnect.