Lost Video Island

[Dojh167]

Hello all. First off I have not been vidding for a while, and may not be able to for some time. I do intend to get back to it, however, and have a slight concern I want addressed.

I am getting a new laptop this week which almost certainly means switching over to windows 7. As one not good with change, and am tentative about this.

I have done all of my vidding on Windows Movie Maker. Not the best choice, by far, but I have gotten very handy with it (as much as one can be) and am comfortable with it. I do not have the money to purchase a better program, and at the rate I make videos it probably wouldn't be worth it.

I would therefore be more than happy to stick with WMM. From my understanding, however, there is no WMM on Windows 7. Apparently it comes with "Windows Live Movie Maker," but I don't know if that functions the same or will be workable for my purposes.

Does anybody have any advice? In a perfect world, they would not be shoving Windows 7 down my throat. Is it possible to buy a nice new laptop without it? If not, what are your recommendations?

Also, on a new/different program would I be able to continue to edit partially completed projects?

Thank you all for lending your aid to a less tech-savvy member of your ranks.

[Belle MacFarlane]

you should be able to continue projects on new programs if they're different versions of the same - I went straight from WMM to Vegas, so I don't know about the different WMM verisons. but I do know when I moved from Vegas 7 to Vegas 9, the projects opened fine in 9.

Hopefully you still might find WMM tucked away somewhere - if not, then I guess the best thing to do would be to find your way around WLMM, which I doubt would be too different
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[Aislynn]

I don't really know anything about Windows 7 or Windows Live Movie Maker (other than that I've read several complaints that WLMM has been stripped of most of all the advanced features WMM had and, worst of all, in my opinion, it doesn't have a timeline, you only have the storyboard option ).

Here's an article I found about setting up WMM on Windows 7. PapaJohn, who wrote the article, is a well known WMM expert, so he should know what he's talking about, though, of course, your experience could vary depending on any differences in your computer system, the weather, how Windows is just "feeling" at the time, you know... the usual computer things.

Also, it seems like Windows Live Movie Maker can open a WMM .mswmm project file. If it includes effects or transitions no longer available in WLMM, then it will give you an error but should still open the project.

I don't blame you for not looking forward to having to switch to a new operating system, I'm still running XP for pretty much the same reason, it works for me so why would I want to change it? But there are some cases where you don't have much choice. Wherever you're getting your laptop from, you could definitely ask if there's anyway they can put on the operating system you're used to (they might not be able to but it doesn't hurt to ask ).

Beyond that, you could just try out WLMM and see what it's like; it might work for you, you never know. If not, then you could take the steps to replace it with the Vista version of WMM that seems the most compatible with Windows 7. Other than that, Sony Vegas Movie Studio is about the cheapest PC-based video editing software that I know of that gives you a lot of power for the (relatively ) lowest price. Version 10 says that it's compatible with Windows 7, so that might be your "if all else fails" option if you can't work with WLMM or get WMM to work.

Good luck and I hope you're able to get all set up and able to vid again as soon as possible!

[thefilmchick]

I own Win 7. Put bluntly, Live Movie Maker sucks. Avoid if at all possible; it is literally unusable for vidding purposes (it forced me to use Vegas, as ur-WMM kept freaking out on my Win 7 box.)
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