Apart from additional Problems (like my Wacom refuses to reload Drivers - and my Printer not printing any more and doesn't allow reinstall of Driver) I recently installed all of my Poser, Wacom and Printer programs onto my wife's ancient Vista compie, and everything runs just fine.

So I loaded it all onto my Laptop (identical Win 7 64-bit OS etc etc) and everything runs just fine ! ? !

So, what is causing my superb 6-core Rendering machine Problems and what is my next move?

The only difference between my server and my Laptop that I can think of is that my Laptop is NEVER connected to the Internet.

If SmithMicro's Report  expert is right, and overloading of updates from MS caused the Win 7 OS not to Support P7 or P8 any more, could this also mean not supporting 'old' Software as well ?  Wacom ca 4 years old, Epson Printer ca 5 years old, Office programs like Word and Excel  first bought for Win XP but I love them and want to Keep them.

Going slowly POTTY here. 

I have all versions of Poser from P5 to Pro2014 running on Win7 64 bit without a problem.  P8 does have a library issue with IE 11 but since IE is not my primary browser, I unchecked the auto update box in the IE 10 about box.  I don't know what SMS so called experts are telling you but other than the IE problem (which SMS refuses to provide a patch for) Win updates are not the problem. 

What issues are you seeing with P7?  You will not have the same issues with P8 as P8 is the version that introduced the Flash library. 

Have you tried running them in compatibility mode?  If all else fails, you can create an XP virtual box on your system but I really don't see why you would need to.  Are all your SR's and video drivers up to date? 

Without know exactly what type of errors you are receiving for each version, it's difficult to give answers.

user paths changed with win7.  it could be a rights issue.  ... can't find the thread that talked about it

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Poser 7 symptoms were starting fine as usual up to the document window stage but as soon as I clicked anywhere like 'Load' since I hadn't finished my Scene Setup the previous day, P7 simply disappeared and left me looking at my Desktop.  Poser 8 booted to the Doc window stage and remained there until I clicked on 'Load' and immediately the Screen went a sort of semi-transparent White and a popup told me that my Poser executable file was no longer running.  Everything remained White and nothing responded so I had always to Control-Alt-Delete to get out.  Regarding SP3, installed on both P7 and P8.  Graphics and several other Drivers were all up to date.

The other issues are not strictly Poser Problems so shouldn't be discussed here.

I'm scheduling a Restore once I've read the book that came with my compie and sussed out the various types of restore.available.  Like partial restore back to a date Prior to my Problems showed up, or if that Fails, then a 100% restore.  If that cures things I won't mind so much having to rebuild here and there.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment. 

P7 did the crash to the desktop.  Often times when that happens, the ini file gets corrupted.  You need to locate the prefs folder (usually found in Users>app data>roaming.  Make sure P7 is closed.  Delete the ini file from the prefs folder.  it's been recommended to delete the library xml file as well but I usually don't.  The ini file will rebuild when you next launch P7.  It might take an extra minute to load but no biggie.  Load a new blank scene and load some content.  Doesn't matter what.  Save the scene.  Close P7 and then re open in.  Load the scene you just saved.  If everything loads as it should, things should be ok.  I don't know how many times I had to do this with P6 and P7.

P8 could be a Flash problem.  Unless you need an up to date version of Flash for other things, I don't bother to up date it.  Tech support told me way back when P8 was released that the version that loads when you install P8 is one that's optimized for it.  I don't know how true this is but I can tell you that except for the IE 11 issue, Poser 8 runs fine under Windows 7.

What's the newest version of Poser you are running on your systems?  The only other time I've encountered the fading screen issue was when I had a problem with Windows Explorer.  For a while, Windows Explorer would suddenly stop working and I would get the pop up telling me that it had stopped and giving me a couple of choices.  I never did figure out why it was doing it.  I started after one update and then disappeared after another. 

If the problems persist, you might want to uninstall the apps, run a cleaner app like CCleaner to get clean up leftover garbage and then do a clean re-install.

 Good news all around.  I did a full Win 7 Recover 100%.  Had to reload a lot of stuff but all bugs are gone, Wacom runs, I can print again, even my DVD drive opens up when you stick a disk in, but best news of all: Poser 7 & 8 are running again !  So I'm happy but nervous  LOL

BTW I do run CC Cleaner, Wise Registry cleaner, and a non-MS Defrag app.

Thanks for the input !