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anyone else have one hell of a time with this clunk of junk? and manage to get it working? i mean, i know its a cheap program and all compared to other renderers but jesus freaking christ. this is unusable.

I've used every version since 4 and have had the fewest problems with the latest SR of 7 than with any version since 4.  I had problems with it at first, but almost all of them seem to be fixed (or I subconsciously work around them now).