Last week I got a Virus, while visiting the link of a thread, here at renderosity.  Since then I've; made sure that thread got yanked, reformat my HDD, and reistalled Windows.

Today I decided to start reinstalling all of my programs, starting with P7.  The Poser  installer worked fine, but then when I clicked the Start Menu Shortcut to Poser, Windows gave me a Configuration Error message. 

I then tried avoiding the shortcut file, by browsing directly to the install directory.  When I got there I clicked the Poser 7 Executable, and Poser launched...to the Default State I had before I reinstalled windows!  I shook my head, and double checked that I was in the new install directory; but then saw I was actually in the Copy of the Old Install directory, that I had made before I reformatted, by mistake.
To my understanding this copy of my old install directory, alone, should'nt have worked?  At least I know that this did'nt worked with older version of Poser(Poser3+;) because I've always been sure I've needed to actually reinstall(register) Poser, with Windows, for Poser to work.  Then I've always needed to copy over many of my Older Runtime files(Geometries, Libraries, Etc.) by hand!  I know some programs work that, way, but I've always been sure Poser did'nt?

Then I went into the copy of my old Poser 6 install folder, tried it's exacutable, and it ran the Default State too?!

Is this all something new? 

Right now I'm seeing this as kind of a mixed blessing; just becasue it's new to me I'm not sure I trust it.  I hate to start using Poser this way, and then have it corrupt all of my files, each time a resave something; just becasue Poser would'nt actually be in the Registry?

Also, if anyone could tell me where the Default State's .PZ3 is I would appreciate it?  I need to open it, in a text editor, and see where it is trying to find a V3 geometry file; that I thought would have been in the Runtime that is within the Poser install directoy,

:tt1:

IN P7, the PreferredState.pz3 is in the Documents and Settings area,
along with most of the other preference material.  Exact location varies....
just browse through Documents and Settings, find Application Data,
then find the Poser 7 folder.

Hiya Ockham!

The Application Data directory is Windows folder, though.  I just formatted my HDD, so all my old Application Data Folders have been erased. I uninstalled Poser 7, from this fresh install of Windows.  And I hav'nt set a new default state.

It must be in my old Poser Install directoy somewhere, becasue there would be no other explanation as where it came from when I launched my former copy of Poser?

I would have said it is in the top level of the install directoy, but apparently I'd have been mistaken.

I think Documents and Settings, by default, will be in root directory level, not under Windows folder.

Yes it is; but it  was erased with the rest of the disk, when reformatted, for sure.

BTW - Are Documents and Settings replaced with a Reinstall of Poser.  I know I would'nt expect to find my old Desktop, of My Documents, after reinstalling Windows; even without first reformatting the whole disk(just wondering if anyone knows for sure?)

I've installed P6, and have noticed a couple things about the two instances of Poser.  The installed application aquires about 14 times more RAM, than the unregistered instance, during rendering.  This caused a render to fail fairly quickly(after it took 20 minutes to complete 1/8 the image,) where the installed application completed the image in about 30 minutes.   But the installed version was a Minimal Installation, which I think may have left out some Python functions; so the old Poseer directory's function is needed to complete Poser collectsceneinventory.py.