Monday, December 26, 2016

Movie Maker and Photo Gallery went away on January 10, 2017

Update: This post has been updated to reflect the state of Windows Essentials 2012 now that the deadline has passed.

Microsoft announced it has stopped supporting Movie Maker and Photo Gallery (part of Windows Essentials 2012) as of January 10, 2017.

Here are a few questions and answers:

Are the programs still available for download? 
The web installers and offline installers that used to be available at download.live.com have all been removed. The following response to a question on Microsoft Answers might help:
Where to get a Safe Download of Movie Maker

Where are the Windows Essentials Offline Installers for other languages?
They have all been removed from the Microsoft website.

What happens to Movie Maker (and Photo Gallery) if it is already installed?
Already installed applications will continue to work as they do today but there will be no updates.

What are the recommended alternatives for Movie Maker and Photo Gallery from Microsoft?
As part of the Fall Creators Update to Windows 10, the Photos App now includes the ability to create a movie from your photos and videos. You can either let it start the process using the Create > Video remix option, or you can do it yourself using the Create > Video project.


What other options are there? 
ProVideoCoalition has posted their Free Video Editing Software Guide for 2017.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Upgrading to Windows 10 - Is there an update to Movie Maker?

The short answer is "no". Movie Maker was provided as part of Windows Essentials 2012. As you might have guessed from the version number (2012), there have been no updates to the program in a few years. And, unfortunately there are no announced plans by Microsoft to change this for Windows 10. If you want the Windows Essentials version of Movie Maker, you will continue using Movie Maker 2012. The good news is it still works the same as before and seems unaffected by the upgrade to Windows 10.

For those of you that are still enjoying the classic version of Windows Movie Maker 6.0, be aware that Microsoft will rebuild your C:\Program Files\ folder. The contents will be backed up in C:\Windows.old\Program Files\ but that means that Windows Movie Maker 6.0 will seem to disappear. One fix for this is to just reinstall WMM 6.0. This might be the best approach since it will ensure that everything gets added to the registry correctly. This would also require you to reinstall any custom transitions, effects and titles you may have installed, including ShaderTFX. Alternatively, you may just want to copy the Movie Maker folder from C:\Windows.old\Program Files\Movie Maker into C:\Program Files\Movie Maker.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Fading Logo Overlays for WMM 6.0

For years people have been asking for custom titles for putting a logo or watermark on their video.

There have been solutions for this in Windows Movie Maker 6.0 previously but it required customization of the XML. It also didn't have an ability to fade the logo in and out. I've decided to create an installer that makes it much easier, doesn't require editing of the XML and also adds a fading version.

There are two installers depending on whether you are running on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
Blaine's Logo Overlay Titles (32-bit)
Blaine's Logo Overlay Titles (64-bit)
The packaged installer comes with two sample logos in C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared\AddOnTFX\BlaineLogoOverlays. To use your own logo, edit the .png images to replace my logo with your own. In order to create/edit your own, you'll need a program that can create .png images with transparency. Some freeware options are GIMP and Paint.net.

To use the new title
  • Go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip'.

  • Click on 'change the title animation'.

  • Under your list of one line titles there will 4 new title animations: Blaine's Logo Overlay (16:9), Blaine's Logo Overlay (16:9) Fading, Blaine's Logo Overlay (4:3), Blaine's Logo Overlay (4:3) Fading

  • Pick the one that matches the aspect ratio of your project and whether you want it solid or fading. Then click 'Done'.

  • Stretch the title so that it extends for the length of your clip.


  • If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the original forum post that inspired this title.

    Saturday, March 16, 2013

    Custom Camera Back Overlay for WMM 6.0

    Camera back overlayFollowing my series of custom Movie Maker image overlays, here's an overlay where your video appears on the back of a digital camera.

    There are two installers depending on whether you are running on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
    Blaine's Camera Back Overlay (32-bit)
    Blaine's Camera Back Overlay (64-bit)
    To use the new title
  • Go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip'.

  • Click on 'change the title animation'.

  • Under your list of one line titles there will a new title animation: Camera Back Overlay (4:3)

  • Pick this then click 'Done'.

  • Stretch the title so that it extends for the length of your clip.


  • If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the original forum post that inspired this title.

    Sunday, January 27, 2013

    Installing Windows Movie Maker 6.0 on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10

    If you are reading this, I'm going to assume you've upgraded or purchased at least one PC with Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10 and discovered Windows Movie Maker is no where to be found. In its place, Microsoft offered a set of programs called "Windows Essentials" which included Movie Maker 2011 or 2012.

    Many people have tried these versions of Movie Maker 2011 or 2012 and complained about the lack of a traditional timeline, issues with crashing, long times to prepare video files and the inability to customize the transitions, effects and titles. If you have been building up a library of custom titles, transitions and effects under Windows Movie Maker 6.0, none of these can be used in the newest Movie Maker because the rendering architecture has changed and Microsoft has no API for customizing things.

    The good news is you can still use the latest version of Windows Movie Maker 6.0 from Vista. You can do this manually by copying the files from a Vista machine, registering some DLLs and creating a shortcut in your start menu. Or you can just use the installers I created below:
    Movie Maker 6.0 for Windows 7/8/8.1/10 (64-bit)
    Movie Maker 6.0 for Windows 7/8/8.1/10 (32-bit)
    There are two versions (64-bit or 32-bit) depending on the version of Windows you are running. If you are unsure, go to your 'Start' menu, right-click on 'Computer' and choose 'Properties'. System type should show 64-bit or 32-bit operating system. Pick the installer that matches. After that, don't forget to start previewing all the cool add-ons that you can have with this version.

    Note: I'm turning off comments on this thread since there are more than 200.
    Update: Newer browsers have started blocking (MSI) installer files. If you are having this problem, right-click on the link and choose "Open in new window". You'll see the URL ending in .MSI at the top of your browser. Highlight that name and press Enter until the file downloads. After that you should be able to see the download at the bottom and then click the little arrow and choose "Open". That should then start the installation process.

    Thursday, August 23, 2012

    Custom iPhone Overlay Title for WMM 6.0

    iPhone OverlayFollowing my series of custom Movie Maker image overlays, here's an overlay where your video appears on the screen of a iPhone.

    There are two installers depending on whether you are running on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
    Blaine's iPhone Overlay Title (32-bit)
    Blaine's iPhone Overlay Title (64-bit)
    To use the new title
  • Go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip'.

  • Click on 'change the title animation'.

  • Under your list of one line titles there will be two new titles: iPhone Overlay FS (4:3) or iPhone Overlay WS (16:9)

  • Pick the one that matches your aspect ratio then click 'Done'.

  • Stretch the title so that it extends for the length of your clip.


  • If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the original forum post that inspired this title.

    Friday, July 27, 2012

    Wow! Title Variations for Movie Maker

    It was recently brought to my attention that the "Wow!" title animation in Windows Movie Maker will randomly choose the angle of the words. After a bit of snooping, I discovered there is a parameter to control this angle. As a result I decided to create this pack of Wow! Title variations so you can decide the angle (even upside down!)

    Note: These titles will work in WMM 2.1 (XP) and WMM 6.0 (Vista/Win7). I've provided XML for both versions in the installers.

    Here's a sample video to help you visualize the titles.

    There are two installers depending on whether you are running on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
    Blaine's Wow Titles (32-bit)
    Blaine's Wow Titles (64-bit)
    There are 4 different variations, but feel free to examine to XML to make your own variants. To use one of the new titles:
    Go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip'.
    Type your text in the first box.
    Click on 'change the title animation'.
    Under your list of one line titles, pick the desired variant:

  • Wow! Tilt Up
  • Wow! Tilt Down
  • Wow! Straight
  • Wow! Upside-down

  • As with other titles, you can change the font, background color and other styling attributes. Finally, click 'Done'.
    Adjust the title duration by shrinking/stretching the rectangle on the Title Overlay track.

    Wednesday, May 02, 2012

    How to fix error 80004003 in Windows Live Movie Maker

    Error 80004003
    A number of people have been reporting corruption issues (error 80004003) when trying to reopen a Windows Live Movie Maker project. It happens after a person has made changes to a WLMM project then he/she tries to reopen the project. WLMM displays an error (80004003) saying that it is unable to open the file.

    Sorry, Movie Maker can't open this project file. The file might not be compatible with Windows Live Movie Maker or be corrupted.

    If you are willing to wait, Microsoft will fix a corrupted file for you and if you aren't very technically savvy, that's what I would suggest.  Completely follow the instructions at that link, especially the last step where you submit a private request for support on this issue. If you don't receive any follow-up, post a question in the Microsoft Community Forums for Movie Maker.

    This post is for anyone that wants to know what is happening behind the scenes, or that wants to try to fix the problem on their own.  It requires some PC knowledge.

    The first step is to make a copy of the file so you aren't working with the original. You do this by copying the file in Windows Explorer then pasting it back into the same folder with a new name.  You'll want to use the copy, not the original. Right-click on the copy of the project file and choose 'Open With' and pick the Notepad application.  The file is text in the form of XML tags.  It's just a hierarchical mark-up similar to HTML.

    Scroll to the bottom of the file to find a <BoundPlaceHolders> section. It says that the "Text" section has an extentID of 4. Looking just above that you should see a section that starts with <ExtentSelector ExtentID="4" which lists all the added titles and captions by number. Make a note of all these because you'll need them later.  You might want to select and print just this section, or paste that list into another window so you can refer back to it.

    Now search further up for each section starting with <TitleClip. Ignore any sections that have a complete section between the <Effects> and </Effects> tags. Eventually you'll hit a few that just have <Effects/> (an empty Effects section).

    Check if that ExtentID is in the list of ExtentIDs in the Text section from before (the ones you made a note of). If it isn't you can ignore this, but if you find that it has an empty Effects section *and* it is listed in that block of text ExtentIDs, that's a problem.

    The quickest fix is to then go to the ExtentIDs section and remove that problem ExtentID.  It will remove that one problem caption and that will usually fix it, so you might be able to stop here. However, you should check all <TitleClip sections to be sure. After removing any problem ExtentIDs, you can save the file.

    You should now be able to open the project in Movie Maker just like before. You may need to recheck your captions and add back any that were removed, but at least you won't have a completely corrupted project.

    As a final step, I'd recommend downloading the latest version of Movie Maker to avoid corruption in the future.  That won't fix broken projects, but at least it will stop you from having this problem going forward.

    It's really not all that magical and can be done easily, if you are careful and only work in a copy.

    Edit: Since posting this, I've seen other corruptions unrelated to the captions. The newest corruption will still let you open the project, but you'll see nothing in the storyboard project area. Whenever I have encountered this, the cause was a VideoClip that had a start point (inTime) after the ending point (outTime). To fix this, you have to find the duration of the media item at the top and use that in place of the outTime for any clips that are set incorrectly. Again, always work in a copy, not the original.

    Monday, April 16, 2012

    Blaine's Custom Transition Pack 4 (Twists)

    Blaine's Transition Pack 4I've been meaning to release another transition pack for awhile now. If you watch the Transition Pack 4 - Sample Video you'll see they are a series of cool twist transitions.

    These transitions require the use of Rehan's ShaderTFX add-on. If you've never installed this before, follow the directions on his website and test they work first. If you've already installed a copy of ShaderTFX (registered or unregistered), you can skip these steps.

    There are two installers depending on whether you are running WMM 6.0 on a 64-bit or 32-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
    Prerequisite: Rehan's ShaderTFX add-on.

    Windows Movie Maker 6.0:
    Blaine's Transition Pack 4 (64-bit) Installer
    Blaine's Transition Pack 4 (32-bit) Installer

    After restarting Windows Movie Maker, you should have 28 new Twist transitions with corresponding icons. There are 4 twist directions and 7 different background colors.

    *Note: These transitions require the architecture of WMM 6.0 and can't be made to work on the earlier WMM 2.6 or the later WLMM. For anyone that wants to customize the background color, check the .xml.

    Wednesday, April 04, 2012

    Blaine's Paint Splat Titles

    Preview Paint Splat TitlesI had a request in the forums for titles on top of paint splats. Here's a sample video to help you visualize the titles.

    Note: These titles will work in WMM 2.1 (XP) and WMM 6.0 (Vista/Win7). I've provided XML for both versions in the installers.

    There are two installers depending on whether you are running on a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The installer will put the necessary files into, C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared.
    Blaine's Paint Splat Titles (32-bit)
    Blaine's Paint Splat Titles (64-bit)
    There are 4 different colored paint splats. To use one of the new titles:
    Go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip'.
    Type your text in the first box.
    Click on 'change the title animation'.
    Under your list of one line titles, find the new animation in the desired color:

  • Paint Splat (Blue)
  • Paint Splat (Green)
  • Paint Splat (Purple)
  • Paint Splat (Red)

  • As with other titles, you can change the font and other styling attributes. Finally, click 'Done'.
    Adjust the title duration by shrinking/stretching the rectangle on the Title Overlay track.