you might want to try more troubleshooting on your own. for instance, try rendering the tutorial with a subset of the features and effects. if it works, add more and see if it crashes. if it doesn't work, simplify more and see what happens. through trial and error, you should be able to find out if the problem is your configuration of the scene. also, try taking your scene to a friend's machine to see if the problem is your box. as far as carrara 2 goes, it seems to be much more stable than 1. there were some great useability enhancements in the realm of selecting, moving and rotating objects that make the software far more enjoyable. i found carrara 1 to be barely tolerable, 2 is much nicer.