I think I have the pro version - got it from a magazine. 

Looked through the manual real quick and I know there are brushes to paint bumps and make selections but is there a texture painting feature that allows you to paint colors and textures directly on your model?

Carrara 7 Pro does have 3D paint.  In the Assembly room, in the top left under the menu bar is an icon that looks like a paint brush.  This enables the 3D Paint features.

I believe your model needs to have a UV map before you can "paint" it. There's a downloadable PDF format tutorial on 3D Painting from http://www.sharecg.com/v/42005/PDF-Tutorial/3D-Painting-for-Carrara

 Thanks people. I'll check it out.

I got Carrara 7 from Digital Arts but on their download site for it they also had another Carrara file titled something like 'Carrara Environmental' and it was a 180 meg file. When I installed it, it mentioned 'Pro' - so I don't know what I actually have, but looking around, what I have does quite a bit, including hair which I wouldn't expect to be in the standard version.

Looking at the Digital Arts site, it looks like the version they have with the magazine is the Standard version, which does do hair.  C7 standard does not include advanced features such as 3D paint, UV unfolding, and a lot of the multipass render options.  #D Artist Magazine issue 17 has C& Pro.

BTW, welcome to Carrara MidnightCarnival. There's a lot of helpful folks here in the Carrara Forum.
There's also a nice Carrara forum at DAZ3D. Lots of brains to pick here and there. Here's a PDF fur tutorial from the tutorials section here at Renerosity- 
http://www.seedydeedee.co.uk/Tutorials/hair%20in%20Carrara%20Pro%20smaller2.pdf

I'm afraid Kuladen is correct. I see that Digital Arts has HowieFarkes's "Country Lane" Carrara scene available for free in their Download Zone, but they also have a Digital Brushes pack there, so I'm a bit confused. Both are for either Mac, or Windows. Very well worth downloading if they weren't already included on your Magazine Cover Disc. I think you'll really like Carrara. Have fun.

I looked at my book store -Barn&Noble.. and were sold out of 3D artist...  So I made a few phone calls and got a hold of a B&N in another borough here in NYC..  and had them deliver it...  $19.00 total cost...   Hope I did not waist my time doing that when I could have just downloaded...

Oh well... I like the Magazine anyways... 

 Thanks a lot, guys.

Yeah, that's what has confused me too. I have a folder on my system that reads "Carrara 7 Pro Beta."

And then I have another that reads "Carrara 7 Standard." 

Apparently the one that is installed and working (I installed them all at once) is the standard version (I don't have the 3D paint option).

I think Carrara standard was only 80 something megabytes but I pulled a Carrara something or other from Digi Arts download zone that was close to 200 megs big! Was that dude's scene that big?

Maybe if I uninstall what I have now and only install the big file. Hmm.

New Zealand is currently at issue 14 of 3D Artist, the mag shop told me 17 will be here in two or three months (we're behind over here). I could take the short route and order it online but I've gotten a lil' greedy with all of these free programs so I'm going to wait and have the bookshop over here hold a copy and call me when it comes instead of spending the extra dough right now to get a copy online.

I have to say that what is available in Carrara 7 is highly impressive and the whole program has a very polished and quality feel to it like, out of all of my modelers, Carrara 7 is the last one that I would expect to ever crash. 

The large file is most likely the Carrara Native Content.  It is a collection of various models, shaders and example scene files, and will need to be be installed if you want to use the New Scene Wizard to load presets when creating a new document.  Some of the scenes are fairly good, and some not so.  The models are pretty basic, but do serve as a starting point to see how different things can be modeled.

Interesting....Renderosity seems to be acting up with Fox.

Will have to swtich out browsers. My postings are coming up blank sometimes.

Yeah, all the Pro content is there, along with the extra brush pack for back when Daz was letting people load it up for beta testing. I can't get it to activate though.

And yup, that massive file was like you said, the native content. =)