Congratulations! I wish you a lot of fun with it.

To help you with your first question ( there will be more, believe me) : Set up your preferred scene ( get rid of andy, change the lights,etc. etc.), click edit on the menu bar. Click general preferences. Check on launch behaviour-> launch to preferred scene. and press "Save preferred scene".

If you want your interface to be always the same: click the interface tab and check on launch behaviour-> launch to previous state.

Oh yes and click OK at the bottom.

This is always the first thing I do when I have a new upgrade of poser, I have already to few hairs to pull out.

Happy rendering!

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?