Here follows the saga of installing Maya;

I work in an FE college in the UK, if any of the following is happening to you I will attempt to offer counselling and support.

I am running Maya on a Mac, running version 10.4.11.

Here begins The Saga of Maya
Purchased Autodesk/ Alias Maya 8.5 £D software complete 10 user educational licence in September 2007.

The first indication that things were not going smoothly occurred when I tried to install the software.
Usual method, which works with all other products;
Put disk in drive, enter number on box, install.
The number on the box is not the serial number, I ring my reseller, apparently it has been sent to me via my college email address.
Search email, never arrived.
Ring Dan the reseller, he sends me the info via my personal email address.
I make my first mistake, I do not know what I am dealing with yet and fail to read and inwardly digest the pdf file on the installation disk the section on installing licences which runs to 25 relevant pages.
Try again to install from Autdesk/Maya-OPA.opa wizard.
This takes me to the

https://registeronce.autodesk.com...etworkParams!input.action
website

Product Registration & Activation
The website crashes when I receive the activation code. I try again,
This message appears:

You have exceeded the number of times you can receive an activation code. Please contact Autodesk. (10)

Other tasks become more pressing, Maya is still not operational; I ring Maya, who tell me to ring my reseller, who tells me to ring Maya.

During February and March I break my ankle in an unrelated accident, the task of Maya installation does not progress until April 2008

I ask for an activation code, for this Maya need to know the Ethernet address of the machine I will be installing Maya on.
The question I have not asked is what type of license activation is required, single use or floating or fixed on a network.
Thus the code does not work when I paste it in the enter license data window.

a colleage assists by ringing Autodesk,
I am sent a new activation code.
I try to install again.
I am directed again to this message:

You have exceeded the number of times you can receive an activation code. Please contact Autodesk. (10)

As far as I can make out I need instructions on setting up a floating license server, I have not been informed this is what I need to do, I find these instructions on the Autodesk website. These instructions are complex and involve lots of typing code in the terminal window.
This will take time, I have many other duties, learners need to use the Mac where I am attempting to install and authenticate the Server.

Maya is installed but refuses to start and crashes when started.

It is now May 2008.
I decide to try again with a clean install so-----

I run uninstall Maya, it deletes all my applications.
Decide that this is beginning to cause me psychogical damage, its a busy time of year for the students, the IT suite is running fully booked every day.
Join arena, discover that this is a fixable bug, so I am not insane or cursed :)