I had Poser on my C drive, which was running out of space. I realized that Poser was the main cause of the trouble, and I should have to move it. I was not looking forward to uninstalling and reinstalling it, in case I also had to reinstall all the models, clothes and so on that I have collected over the years. I asked in the In Depth Arts forum whether it would be possible to save my runtime folder to the new partition, install Poser, do the upgrade patch, and then replace the new runtime folder with my old one.

Someone said 'yes, but why go to the trouble of uninstalling/reinstalling. Just move all the Poser folders. It works on a Mac'. So I did that, but I also changed the path in the desktop and start>programs links to the new path. It was only a matter of changing the drive letter, because I made sure the path was exactly the same on the new drive. Then I searched for Poser in the registry and wherever I found the old path I updated that. And it works perfectly. There was absolutely no aggravation involved at all - just a simple move of folders and files - which took over 30 minutes.

It freed up 1.25GB of space on my C drive, which is more than enough to keep my other programs happy. It now shares a partition with my hard drive copy of my website. That grows a bit, but not nearly so much as Poser does when I keep adding models. There is 2GB of spare space on that partition, so it should keep Poser happy for the forseeable future.

But if anyone is thinking of moving Poser to another drive - just move it. You don't need to uninstall and reinstall.

I'm actually sort of suprized it worked so well - how about if you double click on a PZ3 file, does Poser still start?

It should Jim.. as all the referances in the registry have been changed as well.. that's the key when you move programmes from one drive to another, I do it all the time to free up more room, the advantage of multiple drives 8 ) very well written carol 8 ) concise and easy to understand 8 ) thank ye love

question... I didn't move... I copied it... I now work on the one on my D-drive, - but can I now UN-install the Poser program on the C-drive? Thanks, Britt

You can copy or zip the entire contents of the runtime folder then copy them anywhere else. I uninstalled Poser from my C Drive, then installed it on the D drive. Then I unzipped and copied the Runtime folder onto the D drive. Works like a charm. I'll never go into the Registry. That's for people with more talent than me. I'd never recommend to "average people" to mess with the Registry.

I dont know if poser puts something in the registry. moved poser several times from one drive to another, without changing anything in the registry and all worked fine .No problems with older *.pz3 files

Duh, I didn't read the line about editing the regiasty, most people (including me) are afraid of doing much of that. I do know you can have two working copies on the same drive, so I'd guess you could just install it in a new location and then drag all your own folders into it, so you had all the custom stuff we all have.

Attached Link: http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=77431&b=uk

It is a 'Freeware' program

You type in the old address and the new one and this teeny little program updates all links and the registry.

http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=77431&b=uk

Info is on this page

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/help/tips/story/0,2802,e7109493,00.html

I spent all yesterday copying and testing my move of Poser from C-- with 800M's left-- to D with 40 G's left. I can't seem to uninstall as, thanks, I think, to Norton Essentials for Computer Destruction, there is no log of its ever being installed. It works fine as long as I start up from D and open pz3's instead of clicking on them. I would love to delete the other "thing which has no birth" so to speak-- but I'm seriously afraid that would screw up everything. Going to try COA and see how that works. I can always empty the C program of any content if nothing else works. The Texture file alone is a Gig. Oh, the copying took no time at all-- the screwing up my courage to test it took the time. I love the synchronicity on this forum.

The first time I double clicked on a .pz3 file I had to locate the Poser folder, but since then it works perfectly normally.

I go into the registry a lot. Many uninstallation programs leave a lot of rubbish in the registry which can actually interfere with a new installation. I search for, say, Poser. If I am uninstalling, I make sure the one it finds really is for Poser, because it finds composer etc as well, and if it is, I delete it. If I have uninstalled something I want no references to it in the registry. In this case I was just looking for paths that pointed to Poser being on the C drive, and modifying them to show a K instead of a C.

If you are nervous about changing the registry you can back it up before you start, and if anything goes wrong, you can restore it to how it was before you began.

Gueri, I am not a Norton fan, because it does seem to take over your computer and stop you from doing perfectly ordinary things. Can you disable it temporarily while you uninstall the extra copy using the Control Panel add/remove programs? If not, just delete all the files from the original copy using Windows Explorer. When I moved mine, it deleted them from C when putting them on K anyway.

One of the main reasons I upgraded to Poser 4 from Poser 3 when 4 first came out was because of its ability to operate on any drive, since then I have copied and moved Poser all over including a portable harddrive that I got(usb connect... wonderful)and I keep a copy of Poser on it with all of its 3.5gb. When I upgraded my computer and decided to format and start from scratch I reinstalled Poser and have just put in the models I use all the time.I reached 2.1gb quickly and decided to put it on my 2nd harddrive I just made a folder called Programs and drop and dragged metacreations/poser4 file into that. No problems the only thing I had to change was the path in my start/programs button. Anything I have purchased from Daz or even the freebies all find the right path. Poser is definatly one of the easiest programs to move around. Marge

This is going to sound strange, but how do you delete something using Windows Explorer? People mention this occasionally but I've never had the nerve -- till now-- to actually ask how. By the way, it is a vast relief to have Poser on a drive that's not going to go wierd from lack of memory.

Attached Link: http://www.ontrack.com/powerdesk/

queri......just right click on the file you want to delete andd selct delete from the drop down menu. You'll get the standard "are you sure... blah,blah,blah"

Thank you so much, Judith, I'm doing it now. Even if it by some odd chance screws up the other one, I'll still be able to reload the program and just transfer the libraries. As if 16 gigs would ever be a big enough C disk for a graphics fanatic. It was partitioned by the seller not me. I just got ZBrush and no place to put it. It's going on Drive E. Have I mentioned lately that I love this forum???

As a shortcut to deletion, you can just select the file and press the Delete key. These approaches don't actually delete the file, of course; they only send it to the Recycle Bin. If you really want to zap the file, hold down the Shift key while deleting, but if you change your mind, you won't be able to retrieve it without a good file-recovery utility.

There's also a neat program called "Ultra Win Cleaner 2000" that has several useful utilities on it for drive housecleaning. One of the utilities moves programs from one drive or place to another, resets the registry and the path completely, so it can run from any location you move it to. I'm using it to help re-vamp my system. I just got a 60 gig external bus link drive. I'm using it to rearrange my set-up for better use and efficiency.