Long a bug bear for many Autodesk products, fortunatley there is a solution for Maya;

If you are using 8.5 and want to import later versions such as 2008; open>options box there's a "ignore version" setting that opens pretty much anything.
XminusOne for pointing it out>

If you dont have that option, save your file out of 8.5 as an .MA rather than the more common .MB format ( .MA maya ASCII is a more stable format even if the files are larger )

In windows, right-click the file and select "open with notepad"


Along the top line Maya 8.5 appears four times


change these all to Maya 8.0 ( or whatever version you want- I am not sure how far back you can go )


Close the text box and save changes.

Open file in Maya 8.0..as long as you are not requiring anything specific to 8.5 expect no problems.

-the obvious catch right now is you need your file saved as .MA or know someone with 8.5 that can save it out for you. If anyone knows of a solution for Max and/or AutoCad please post it.

dotname