Thanks for the input. I guess that has made up my mind now, it really is the only outlet. I was 95% sure before, because i thought someone may enlighten me, but thats not the case. I appreciate the other suggestions, but its more work out of my way. I need the most simplistic approach.

Yeah that 64 bit issue is very annoying. I guess the ideal situation would be to have two versions of Max. One 32 bit and one 64 bit, so you could import the animation file into the 32 bit save the scene and then open it in 64 bit. 

anyway i will leave this thread open just encase someone does reply with some different news, otherwise i don't need anyone else to drop a line.