Movie Maker c9450025

Hi RobNap88,

We need to verify the file type of the project that you are opening in your Windows Live Movie Maker. To do this please follow the steps below:

 1. Right-click on the project file, then click Properties.
 2. Under General tab, locate the Type of file.

If this project was from your friend that used Movie Maker from a computer that is running a Windows XP OS, it is possible that the project file was an ".mswmm" or "Windows Movie Maker Project". This project file is not supported in Windows Live Movie Maker. You can submit this as a feature request by going to the http://feedback.live.com/ page and then select "Windows Live Movie Maker".

Thanks,
Gerard G.

As noted, Windows Live Movie Maker cannot open project files from the XP version of Movie Maker.

There isn't much you can do with a project file anyway.  A project file is like a recipe that says, take 30 seconds from this clip, transition to this photo, add a title, etc.  But a project isn't any good without the source files (video, music and photos) that were used.

What your buddy should do, if he wants you to be able to see the movie is to save it as a movie file (File > Save Movie) and that will create a .wmv file that you can play on other versions of Windows.

If on the other hand, you are trying to edit his project, you would need all the source files and a compatible version of Movie Maker.

Gerard, thanks for your reponse to this problem but it just isn't enough.  Any new software like windows live movie maker should be able to read older versions of the same software.  That just is not good craftmanship or good customer service.  I loved and used the older versions when they were new so please tell me what I do with my videos that I have in this older version.  I want to keep them and edit them but your new software does not give me that options.  Please update soon.

I'm afraid your assumption that "There isn't much you can do with a project file anyway" is not correct. I have an educational video wine blog in which I often need to visually produce for my viewers a cross reference to previous video posts which I call flashbacks. For that reason, I maintain a copy of all my video posts in project format. Without access to these files, 2 very intense years of blood, sweat and tears will have been for nothing.

Please, please provide a viable solution to us former XP users, now running WINDOWS 7 , that does not require our having to have a previous copy or to purchase VISTA just to be able to recover our MSWMM files just so that they can be saved in WINDOWS 7.  I do not think I am the only one with this problem. Is there no patch?

I respectfully ask you to please, please provide those who have remained faithful to Windows with a real solution. It shouldn't be the tail that wags the dog.

 

As noted above, you can install WMM 6.0 on Windows 7 (from Windows Vista) and do the double conversion:

1. Use WMM 6.0 to open the .mswmm project file from WMM 2.1, save it out as a .mswmm file (but in 6.0 format)
2. Open the newer Movie Maker (e.g. 2012) and open the .mswmm that you just saved.

The major caveat with this method is that some features that were supported in WMM 2.1 and WMM 6.0 may not be supported in the recent Movie Maker, so it may behave differently.  You may just want to stick with using WMM 6.0 then since it does a pretty good job of supporting WMM 2.1 projects and has the classic timeline that long-time Movie Maker users are more familiar with.

 

This is typical Microsoft garbage! Do yourself a favor, buy a MAC if you plan to do any serious video work. This stupidity of having to download and install another player to do double conversions is insanity. Frankly, no one is interested in your lame apologies for the incompetence of Microsoft!

One more thing I forgot. If you are trying to be so damned helpful, why don't you include the link to the compatible program rather than make us search for it! Typical Microsoft!