Tip for Reinstalling DAZ Studio

Inkubo

I'll cut right to the advice to save you some time:

If after reinstalling DAZ Studio, you run it and find the User Interface doesn't work right, try changing your Layout to something different, apply the changed Layout, then change it back.

Background:

I was having constant CMS startup problems on my laptop, so I tried uninstalling DAZ completely (without asking Install Manager to delete the packages); then I ran Piriform's CCleaner to kill off old registry entries; then I used Install Manager to install just the most basic components first; and finally I allowed Install Manager to install everything else.

Once installation was complete, I ran DAZ only to find that the UI seemed severely damaged: working with panes was difficult because the little button that looks like a list with an arrowhead, the one you use to reveal pane options, was missing from every place it should have been except inside the Viewport, and right-clicking did nothing anywhere. At first I actually wondered if my mouse had broken or its driver had failed. The toolbar at the top of the screen was missing, and only a few menus showed up at the top of the window. Fortunately, the ability to change my Layout was among the available menu options, so I switched my Layout from City Limits Lite to City Limits and applied the change. At that point the toolbars appeared and panes gained their option-menu icons. Then I switched back to City Limits Lite, and all the controls came back as expected and everything (so far) seems to work just as it should.

My explanation is that reinstalling can leave the Qt controls with conflicting settings that can render DS nearly unusable, but changing the Layout resets them.