emm this is really easy.... come on guys :p

make a sphere. MOve the pivot to the centre of where you want them to be placed around. Now goto duplicate options. And set the number of copies to whatever and then set rotate Y to 360/{number of spheres you want} and have it on geometry type "copy" and group under "parent" and then hit duplicate. It's that simple (i think you touched on it in your first post). Just make sure the pivot is moved correctly and you will be fine.

Alan