tried that dave, just did it again now here is the mental image..

Your looking at the top frame of a window and the insert glass part in the top corner of frame.. from inside looking up.

I select the framework and show the vertex's then the glass and show vertex's all verti's there i do shift drag and only the last object selected vertex's highlight... Quite frustrating..

Its just odd I dont normaly have selection problems transitioning from older to newer maya clients..