thanx khul, ya did help me , i tried what u said and it worked, i've now figured out why, after first installing maya and running it, it was asking for server rights on everything i touched it seemed, and server rights always get me a bit paranoid, i don't like the thought of my bandwidth being swallowed up needlessy by unessacary application privelages, so i obviously denied the fur thingummy jig net access, which meant no fur render, only problem i've got now is with the damn paint tool, it doesnt want to work for me, even though ive selected the fur descrip, and tool (baldness), it just wont lengthen it or shorten it hmmph