Originally posted by stephen20
Thanks for that.
It helps because I thought that I might have to buy XP Professional.
Oh, one more thing, as a beginner who is about the purchase the software, how is the software to start using from scratch?
I have only ever used form z before on 3D modelling but I thoughts Maya is really for animation?
a suggestion, get the PLE (personal learning edition) of maya, which is free and test it. if your have no problem to install and use it, then you would be fine with a commercial version of maya. and for learning purposes it does work pretty well. the limitation that the renders have a watermark and that you cannot use it commercially by the license, does not hinder you to learn all tools in maya. right now the ple is version 4.5 - but that does not mean everything changes in 5.0 
edit: oops, i just checked www.alias.com and the ple 5.0 is out - unfortunately not for download yet - but easier to spend $ 20 on the cd, then to spend $ 2000+ and not be happy with maya ....
Last edited by BabyDuck; 03-08-2003 at 10:14 AM.