On my Mac my Poser 11.0.7 still seems to be working, so I am somewhat reluctant to upgrade to 11.2. One critical question: Does the 11.2 upgrade blow away your previous content (Runtime, Downloads->Runtime) or does it just change the executables? Obviously, if it does remove the previous content, I can always restore it from backup (50 Gbytes or so), but it would be great if I didn't have to.

The answer is no. You need to make certain that you use your existing preferences to maintain your Library content. The Poser installer will uninstall your previous version and any associated files but content that you manually installed yourself will be safe. I was an early-adopter tester and I've done several reinstallations without any problems. I would recommend that you seriously consider updating your software unless you have completely disabled the phone home feature permanently. The SM licensing servers are now offline, any attempt to use the software before updating may not work.

Thanks, your comments were very useful! I just did the install. It took about 5 minutes and everything seems to be fine. I did not get the choice of "previous installation", but I did keep the default of keeping the libraries on the "Shared" folder on the Mac.

I installed Poser 11.2 today - on a new Mojave external drive. I left my old runtimes where they were, and installed the 11.2 content in the Applications folder where I like it. Once 11.2 was running I added my old run-times quickly and easily as per normal (they all exist on a separate drive). Everything seems to work fine.

In 5+ years I've used Poser on a Mac, I've never had an installer wipe out my existing default Poser Content runtime. The Smith-Micro Download Manager never did. It would just install whatever was new or newly updated. If I'd renamed any of the original folders or files, then the originals would be installed again without affecting the renamed versions. The 11.2 update from Bondware did the same thing.

As for the additional content, I unzipped those folders on a networked USB drive and installed the content by dragging the Runtime folder onto the default Poser 11 Content folder and choosing "Merge" (rather than "Replace"). That's basically how I install purchased, freebie, or custom-made content as well, except that I do that in a Runtime in a separate "My Poser Content" folder.

If you ever launch Poser and find that the library can no longer find any of your runtimes, you just need to use the little books with a + symbol icon to add them back.

I think if you do as I started doing installing new stuff in the Runtime folder that installs with the app you might run into problems. I got noodle spanked real quick by a more seasoned Poser vet to never do that but to create other Runtime folders to install non native Poser content into. Since newer version of poser can work with multiple runtime folder it was a wisdom I have always followed.

PARDON the OFF-TOPIC HERE: My old MacBook Pro has been auto rebooting in the middle of working projects resulting in the obvious image losses. I found out it is a defective GPU and no longer fixable since ALL the GPUs made for my unit were made at the same time and being considered "Vintage" now parts of different production runs not available. No point getting it "fixed" if the part is replaced by a same part number GPU or used/Refurbished GPU. I need to find another computer and I heard from a Mac tech at the SuperStore that since I work with Higher end apps like PhotoShop and Poser etc., it would be best to get an iMac instead. Do any of you Mac users here concur or disapprove? Please contact me by site mail so we don't clog up this thread.

I installed 11.2 when it came out- worked alright. I just installed 11.2.289 and my runtimes- including the Poser native runtime- are messed up. The installer reinstalled all the content files, and I installed some stuff from 3rd parties using the install from zip function- and some don't load properly because they are missing files. Pauline2, for instance, is missing pauline.obj and shows up in the figure list, but can't be seen in the pose window. A hoodie for LaFemme shows up in the pose window but not as a figure or object and can't be selected. I don't know what' going on, but I don't like it.

shante posted at 2:51PM Thu, 03 October 2019 - #4365211

I need to find another computer and I heard from a Mac tech at the SuperStore that since I work with Higher end apps like PhotoShop and Poser etc., it would be best to get an iMac instead. Do any of you Mac users here concur or disapprove?

I'll send you a PM with more info, but for anyone else viewing this thread, just wanted to say that the 2019 MacBook Pro w/ upgraded options is plenty powerful. See this post on another thread, where I described my system.

Long story:

The installer that used to come with Poser, for a mac, did indeed used to blow away installed content. If you were unfortunate enough to have your additional content in the same path the installer was trying to use. I tracked the bug to a BASH script in the installation. I even tailed the log file to watch it happen. From Smith Micro: "Our installer does not touch already installed content". Not quite true. I supplied the code and the log file. And they never did anything about it. Not sure if the same code is embedded in the 11.2 mac installer. The moral of the story (as someone already pointed out). Never keep your additional runtimes anywhere along the same path that poser installer wants to use.

FYI: the part of the installation that went wonky: It would install all the content into a temp directory. Remember that it was really a collection of a bunch of installers. Each would add its content to that place. The last thing the wrapper-installer would do was issue a unix "mv" command to move that content to "/Users/Shard/Poser Content" directory. The exact command they used in their bash script was "mv -f". Keep in mind that "mv" is NOT merge And when you overwrite a parent directory you are, in effect, blowing away all the children as well. The "-f" means "Do not prompt for confirmation before overwriting the destination".

I kept my content as:

/Users/Shared/Poser Content/7
/Users/Shared/Poser Content/10
/Users/Shared/Poser Content/2014
/Users/Shared/Poser Content/2014 Pro

Which was blow away when the installer overwrote /Users/Shared/Poser Content. Having "mv -f" in code is unforgivably sloppy (and dangerous) programming. I mean, what happens if the target is mistakenly "/Users" due to a screwed up variable in the script???

The script should have checked for the existence of /Users/Shared/Poser Content and should have checked that at least its first few levels of directories matched a poser install and had nothing extra. Or given the option to merge. Even my lamest BASH scripts do that. Reinstalling all the content (GBs, and using DAZ's old installers for some of it).... not fun. Did cause me to write a script that pulled the files out of all the DAZ installers and re-bundle tham as a simple zip. And a script that could take entire directories or runtime zips or figure out how to put the files into a runtime structure, for flat zips. And I move stuff around based on category. I keep those categories as labels (in extended attributes) in the zips. Lets me do things like use spotlight to search content for "poser, v4, character" and then pipe that into my zip install script.

The nice thing about unzip is you can unzip the content over content and it will, indeed do a merge. I de-dupe to hard links within each runtime. And I keep the runtimes sync'd to a server and my other machine.

And now I use:

 /Users/Shared/Content/Poser

And let the installer do its:

/Users/Shared/Poser 11 Content

and when it's done, I:

mv /Users/Shared/Poser 11 Content to /Users/Shared/Content/Poser/11

And I have set /Users/Shared/Content and /Users/Shared/Content/Poser so that even I can't delete them (without changing it purposefully)

Seriously... Having to reinstall GBs of content, especially those horrible DAZ installer bundled things... Yuck.

These days, I keep runtimes organised by category: common, gen4, la femme, a3, toon, and remove from the library those runtimes that aren't useful for whatever project I'm dealing with. It's been so nice this way, I don't dread the library like I used to :D

Also, things are moved together. I move morphs, poses, and mats to subdirectories under the object (figure) itself. Clothing is broken out by "tops. shoes, bottoms, costumes" and each contains it's mats. Much quicker to find stuff. I've found the library search to be essentially useless.

The safest thing to always do is backup your entire Runtime library in a secondary location or on another drive. I have always used the a magic working Runtime directory of my own creation and merely added it to the library after installing new versions of Poser. As long as you always put in the same location on your drive where you started, (meaning my original location was C:/MyRuntime/) then I can move it to a new computer even and still as long as it is in C:MyRuntime, after installing to Poser, Poser can find everything. Now should I put it C:/MyRuntime/newfolder - I'm screwed and Poser won't be able to find associated textures or geometries. But making and using your primary runtime in an external location from Poser's program files will ensure it never overwrites them. And it's easier to back it up.

Hope that tidbit helps a little. As everyone says, as long as you keep existing preferences, it should not ever wipe out a Runtime but...but...but...crap happens. And 11+ is super glitchy at times so I wouldn't trust an install. Yesterday my icon buttons at the bottom of the library window reverted back to the little button buttons for about ten minutes and the went back to basic icons. I don't even know what to call that. I thought I was losing my mind for a minute. But it did it. Hasn't since. What caused it? Who knows. Poser 11 gremlins I suspect. Point being - don't trust it, back up your runtime.