Hello,

Following up on very helpful posts I've gotten from Rhia And blackbonner, I am wondering how to set up my content so that I can access it from several computers. I have 3 computers that I use intermitantly depending on whether I'm at home, work  or at my country house.  I've got Poser installed on all 3 but want to be able to access my content on all 3 and wondering what is the best way to do it.  For example, one idea is to put the content in a folder on Dropbox.  Alternatively I could put it on an external hard drive.  Are there any pros and cons there? 

I know that blackbonner suggested that "I select all files (the Included Content that one downloads off the Posersoftware.com website), and unzip them into one folder, which I keep separate on my external HD. I copy all the  unzipped content into the Public/ Public Documents/ Poser Content Folder. Don't copy the stuff into the runtime folder, that would be a mess.  Next thing is to start Poser and refresh the library. The content should be ready to use now."  

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

That is a very unique situation and it really depends on whether you want to use Poser on all 3 of those. I'm not even sure how many computers you may have Poser running. This is just what I think, others may do it differently.

I would create a download folder on an external hard drive but would NOT put the installs on it in this case. I would put the raw zips on an external drive that you can take with you and install the content on the different computers individually the same way I showed you. The reason being, if you have the content installed on external drive and you transfer that back and forth, you need to, every time you decouple and recouple so to speak, tell Poser you got those folders of Library back. I just would prefer content existing on each computer  individually and just add the new content every time you get a new product purchased. I never used Poser on more than 1 dedicated computer, so I can't really give you a real life answer; I let others do that who experienced it.

For a while, I was using both a desktop and a laptop for poser. I had the software installed on both computers and then put all of the runtimes on an external drive that I pointed both computers to.

As for how many computers you can install it on, I've seen both 3 and unlimited. I think 3 was stated before Poser 12 came out. Unless you've already verified it, I strongly recommend contacting the marketplace or support for clarification.

IIRC, 3 is the limit, however, you can only run one instance of the software at any time if you are connected to a network.  You might get away with more than 3 if Poser is on an isolated computer, but if it requires a phone home at startup then it might not completely open. 

Setting up your content to be able to access it from multiple computers can easily be done by sharing the content folder on a local network. The only additional requirement is to access that share as a network drive (Map Network Drive from file manager). Now you can add that runtime to your Poser library.

I you also want to use the same scenes files on both computers, you heed to have the mapped network drive letter to be the same on both computers.

If you have a NAS at home, this can be a comfortable solution: dedicate part of the drive for your runtimes collections and for your Poser scenes. The idea: having the same network drives on each computer, so that any external file referred to in a Poser scene will be retrieved easily and elegantly.

Keep in mind that if you have multiple computers, you may not have all of them running at the same time.  You need a primary system that is accessible all the time.  If you don't have a NAS at home as Y-Phil suggests, but have a router to manage your wi-fi, there are USB slots for memory sticks.  They may not be as efficient but they are accessible from multiple points.