Hm... never knew about that, thanks for that tip! I'm not saving any max files with this tool though, just saving out jpgs now, so u can see whats in a max file when merging without having to open it and search through it manually and unhide layers/ect.
in max you have an evaluate command that will run any string as if it were maxscript syntax. I think the command is simplyeval "alert \"some message\""