Autodesk Nighmare
Well, it would appear that that last bit of enthusiasm for 3DsMax was undeserved. I worked in it for about two hours and have not been able to access the program since. I am at present, a week behind in work from working my ass off on trying to fix this. Autodesk has so thoroughly disappointed me with their technical support for students that I can’t help thinking I should have just pirated it. I don’t see that I’ve gotten anything more than extra hassle for the money I’ve paid.
The installation support line is 918-747-9333.
They will tell you right off that they don’t do technical support though and since their regular guy is out, you get Doug.
Doug is at 918-770-0164.
I haven’t been able to reach Doug so far today. He may have simply given up on talking to me. I don’t know.
The regular guy I can only reach by email and I don’t know his name. He thinks I should try this on different computers, but I can’t because I don’t have a room full of computers capable of running this stuff, and even if I did, my licensing is only toward one machine. That’s the student license deal. You only get one. That’s why I bought this new computer. I wanted it to be that one.
That guy also recommends Autodesk Customer Service at 1-800-538-6401, and I have spoken to them. I may get a replacement sent to me. But they can’t help me establish if that is the problem or not.
He also sent me to Autodesk Registration at 1-800-551-1490. There a man named Rain sent me to the Douglas Stewart Co. This was supposed to resolve any activation problems.
See I thought I might be having an activation problem now, because today I uninstalled everything from the Windows side of my computer including Windows and Parallels in the hope of starting over completely. I was told that the problem may be my version of Windows. I can’t exchange my version of Windows now, but I could buy a new one outright and see if that works.
By the way, the Parallels support number is 888-811-2489.
So after uninstalling *everything* on the Windows side I attempted to install on the Mac side of the computer the two programs that were working on the Windows side, Mudbox and Maya. Mudbox loaded up just fine, but Maya keeps failing on exit, whatever that means. So I suspected that the serial number was the problem and that it was showing the previous registration on the Windows side of my computer which according to Parallels shouldn’t have worked in the first place because of my Windows version and which now does not exist.
So getting back to the Douglass Stewart Co., they actually don’t handle anything of the sort. The woman there could only give me the installation support line 918-747-93333, which is the number I started with in the first place.
I’ve probably spent the most amount of time with the people working for Parallels from India. Their phone system is a little shaky, but two of the people I’ve spoken to over there have been very helpful. Just no one seems to be able to fix the problem. They are the ones now recommending that I purchase Windows 7 64-bit Professional instead of the Windows 7 64-bit Home edition I currently have. I did research that before purchasing in the first place, but nothing online indicated that one would be better than the other so long as I was in 64-bit. But the disks, now that I have them, do suggest Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (now that I have opened them), so maybe that is the problem there.
But regardless, Maya now won’t install on the Mac side of my computer, which has nothing at all to do with Windows, and points back at the Autodesk software possibly being corrupt. Or perhaps my previous attempts to install have now done something to make this not work. I currently have Mudbox up and running, and that’s all I seem to be able to get. I am currently waiting on a phone call back from someone named Barbara who may or may not tell me anything useful.
I’m quite certain I sound like a complete lunatic to anyone answering the phone at this point, and they would probably be right to think that. Presently I need a shower, and I need to eat something, but I can’t seem to get around to either while I have all this in front of me. It’s almost been a full week since I installed all of this, and it still isn’t working, and I still don’t know why, and I still can’t get the help I need.
This has become such a nightmare.