I will be running P4 on someone elses network that none of my computers are connected to. Since it is the full working version of p4 there is a serious potential problem with all the net-head know-alls who are also on the network. We all know them, their forever - Boasting about their immense (real or imagined) computer knowledge. - jamming the fer with their on-line games. - downloading heaps of Mp3s and game cracks. One had the last Star-Wars film on CD before it was even in the US cinemas. - slagging off at Macs and generally just being a pest. HERE IS THE SOLUTION (to the p4 problem) - Copy the p4 folder, minus the unused stuff (such as the Nude Male, Yettch!) to a USB FLASH DRIVE If you see the little green LED going off when it shouldnt be then just PULL THE PLUG. That way they only get an incomplete version of the incomplete software. By NOT TELLING THEM its on the little fer hammering away at USB1.1 speed they may not get the stuff within the time they think they will get it if it were on a hard disk. It makes sense. Since I hardly use anything except Peridot (Thornworks June 2000) I have reduced the Runtime folder to about 60Mb. How many of us could save a lot of HD space if we were to purge our Runtime folders of stupid stuff we havent used for years and never will again. Ps this applies only to my USB drive version, the original is unharmed.

You know, aside from averting thieves, I thnk part of this is a good idea. My next install my just purge most things that came with P4 itself. I'll keep the stick figures and perhaps create a few more. Much easier to pose those guys and I can set up a scene quickly if I had a V2, V3 and Mike Stick figure. Just pose them, save tyhe pose and apply it to the proper model for the final render.

I'd be careful with removing some of the standard figure that come with poser, it actually does need some of them to be where it wants them to work properly.

To keep runtime at bare minimum, Cut and paste your whole Runtime folder elsewhere on your HDD. Install whatever you use or need as per normal. Then run poser. If Poser complains about missing something, just rstore from the original Runtime folder. Soon as yoru done, just get rid of it.

We need someting tat will look at the libraries and figure aout what geometries we no longer need and delete them also. I have found them from figures I deleted years ago! Oh yea it's gotta work on a Mac too!! :)

Wouldn't turning off file sharing work? When I was in a network like that I had 2 shared folders. One with access for everyone, that was a folder of stuff I wanted to share with people. And another that was password protected for me if I happened to need something while I was at another computer. Most of the other people on my network just had one share, that was they're c drive, with full read-write access (to prove to a friend how stupid this was I changed his backround from the other side of campus). I'm not saying that cleaning up your poser directory is a bad idea though.

and the whole the point is ?..

Geez, if you have people getting on your machine enough to steal Poser from it you have some serious firewall problems. Do yourself a favor and get a copy of Zone Alarm. Its cheap plus you can use it to block Poser's access to the net.

Disable file and printer sharing, don't use silly passwords, use a firewall. Problem solved.

I think the only file Poser needs is the P4 casual male guy..and that's for the Walk Designer. And there are probably ways around it.

If you haven't changed the default startup, it needs the P2 lo casual male figure too, or something like that...

Dealing with the dangerous ones, eh?

The trick is to have the security, but not blatantly issue a challenge.

Theres a lot one can do to safeguard their system, but it varies depending on the OS.
What kind of OS will you be working with?
Does anyone else use this machine besides you?

Another universal solution is to just unplug the NIC cable (assuming you dont need network access & you'll still want that external drive).

~DM

heard all about Zone Alarm (mostly bad) all other solutions are good, just not working on our nw yet

On a completely different tangent, it reminds me of when people try to access my copy of Dance Dance Revolution for the PC to download (I've got an IRC Fserve for my video clips, and some people access the other directories). I actually LET them download all they want from that directory, because there's no actual usable information on the game's installation; everything is actually still on the CD. :) Take that, would-be software pirates! :D