****EDIT****
I finally got both Maya 2011 and Maya 2012 running with all the respective functionality and windows working..
The problem was I had installed Python 2.6 on its own for other projects months before installing any Autodesk products. There were environment variables set by Python namely: PYTHONHOME and PYTHONPATH..
I read this post:
http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-maya/autodesk-maya-2011/python-problem/ which stated there should be no such environment variables set .. so I deleted them. Upon running Maya 2012 everything seems to be working.. when I assign a new material to an object, the Material Picker appears; when I try to launch the Plugin Manager, it appears..
Thank you for your help.
It's a shame that Python and Environment Paths can screw up Maya so terribly. I hope this will help others with similar problems.
Cheers,
C3D
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I'm getting a crash on start up before the UI ever launches.
I just uninstalled the student version I downloaded yesterday and installed the hotfix 3. When I run Maya I get a blank output window, and the small splash screen.. followed by the standard Windows 7 crash popup "Maya application has stopped working.. check online for solutions or close program."
The UI never launches.
My computer is new as of Feb 27th 2011
i7 950 3.37GHz
Win 7 64
6GB RAM
nVidia GTX 460 with 260.99 drivers installed in Oct/2010
Should I install the newer nVidia drivers or go back to older ones? What else can I try?
Cheers
EDIT>>
OK so I have now installed the new nVida drivers 275.33,
I have disabled the Win 7 firewall,
disabled my AVG Online Shield and Resident Shield,
I had a look at the Environment Variables of which I have
PATH
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin;
C:\csvn\bin\;
C:\csvn\Python25\;
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;
�Sy;stemRoot%\system32;
�Sy;stemRoot%;�Sy;stemRoot%\System32\Wbem;�SY;STEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\Backburner\;
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\;
C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\;
C:\xampp\php;
C:\xampp\mysql\bin
I don't know if the is correct or if I need additional variables somewhere else, or perhaps remove something...
What is the major malfunction here??
It's driving me mental... What else can I try?
I'm pretty sure Obi Wan is not my only hope. Please help me out here.
Cheers