Windows 10: Microsoft leaves Windows Movie Maker to die

Windows_10_Windows_movie_maker_2012

With the release of Windows 10, some people may have noticed that Windows Movie Maker may not be there. If you install Windows 10 from a clean installation, it's not going to be there, but if you have Windows Movie Maker installed before you upgrade from a previous version of Windows to Windows 10, it should be there.

According to Microsoft's website, Windows Movie Maker is no longer supported by Windows 10. So the question becomes is this a good idea or is it a bad idea? The answer is simple if your Microsoft and a bit disappointing if you're the person who's been using Windows Movie Maker for years; or expecting to have some sort of video editing software built into the operating system.

Windows Movie Maker has always been one of the most popular video editing software is available. I think it was actually more popular in its previous form with version 2.6; with the timeline view, but that's beside the point.

Windows Movie Maker had some strong points but placed a lot of the responsibility of video codecs onto the user and this made for some very difficult times and some angry people.

The overall problem with Windows Movie Maker has always been that it's supposed to support a wide variety of video formats and it's supposed to allow for people to simply drag-and-drop media directly into it and then create videos very simply, but the reality was Windows Movie Maker only supported the video formats for which the video codecs were properly loaded. So if you are a user that was completely new to video editing and you walked into Windows Movie Maker thinking that it was going to be a cakewalk, you are probably surprised of otherwise.

Responsibility for finding the video codecs fell upon the users that wanted to use Windows Movie Maker. And in some cases, Microsoft expected the users to purchase the proper codecs for the video files or audio that they were working with.

The oddity of this game was that a lot of video conversion programs available on the Internet had these codecs built indirectly. They could open up these video files and media files without any issues whatsoever. Microsoft's excuse for not supporting the other video formats was that there would be an additional cost for the licensing that they didn't want to incur. Overall, Microsoft provided absolutely zero support and assistance to providing, locating or loading the proper codecs that were required.

So bouncing back to the situation where you got a person who's never used Windows Movie Maker before, and now you have this notice from Windows Movie Maker that the video format that they're trying to use is not supported, please load the proper codec situation; how does one go about finding the proper codec?

Oddly enough, if the person want to pursue resolution on making Windows Movie Maker support the proper codec, Microsoft would point them in the direction of a freeware application available from SourceForge called mediainfo.

Windows_Movie_Maker_recommends_mediainfo

That's right, Microsoft would point their users of Windows Movie Maker, over to a freeware application, that they didn't support, that would allow their customers to find (hopefully) the proper codecs that would allow them to edit the video inside Windows Movie Maker.

From my perspective, and others, I think doses a completely stupid position for Microsoft to take. Microsoft should have simply supported the product or not. Pushing users to go to a freeware application to do their job for them was ridiculous and self insulting.

If you've taken the time to read this far, you can see why Microsoft has chose not to continue supporting Windows Movie Maker. The customer base that uses that application is very angry with them. Microsoft is taking the stupidest approach to helping their customers by referencing them to a freeware application that does what Windows Movie Maker should have done automatically. Microsoft also hasn't provided any updates to Windows Movie Maker in quite some time, despite a lot of customers requests for additional features and bug fixes.

So what are the solutions? And what's to do?

Basically, Microsoft is not prepared to endure any more self insulting actions having to do with video editing. They are halting the support of Windows Movie Maker and they are bluntly, very directly, pointing customers in the direction of their Windows store to purchase video editing software.

Windows_store

Sadly there's not much there to choose from… another Microsoft fail to chalk up.

However, as their website says; if you really want, you can download the old version of Windows Movie Maker, but is not supported. Swim at your own risk, and Microsoft doesn't want to hear about your complaints about Windows Movie Maker anymore.

[mic drops and they walk disrespectfully offstage]


If you have any thoughts or opinions on this, let me know in the comments below...

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