I have an Image Id like to make 3D and well its proving to be trouble some i start out with a torus an three spheres, the spheres are used as the cut aways for the notches in the torus. in a previous version it was a simple key press and bam! in 2.5 i cant figure it out any help on this would be much appreciated thank you

Maybe a Boolean modifier to take the bites out of the torus?

Select torus
Add modifier
Select boolean
Operation:: 'Difference'
Object :: {one or all of the spheres}
Apply
Hide/Remove spheres.
(or shrink the spheres for use as the spheres in the final}