Problems with saving Movie Maker work

[BClark]

Hi All,

 

We have a class of students using movie maker 2.6, when reopenening there work on a diffrent desktop or laptop in the school it comes up with a red X on all there slides

 

I made sure they saved everything in the same folder on there documents but still no joy:(

 

 

does anyone have any ideas?

 

Thank you

[Jamo]

The red X just means the file is not in the same location as it was before. Usually if they have saved to a USB stick the movie files are on a different drive letter ie USB was E in one and D in another.

 

Can try putting hte video files in the same location as the movie project. We use the XP movie maker here, it is possibly the most unreliable software EVER!

[laserblazer]

Happens all the time here. They import a 500MB video from a memory stick, save the 256KB project file and then wonder where the video has gone when they next load the project. The number of kids who have come into school with a homework project and no associated video file and then get peeved because there's nothing I can do!

[Pete10141748]

Yup, they've either moved the file location or they had the movie clips on a memory stick and it's drive letter has changed/they haven't got it with them.

 

MovieMaker is one of the things that causes the most grief for me. No-one can seem to keep their files in the same place 2 weeks in a row, even when everything is put into a shared folder/drive for them so they don't have to move anything! I do think MM is a little misleading though, as the "Import video/pictures" isn't really a true import, it's only creating a program-specific shortcut to the file location and anyone non-tech savvy won't know (or understand even if you explain it 3 times) that process, especially children.

 

Bad bad bad software!

[laserblazer]

Bad bad bad software

But the price is good. I've found showing kids how to use Adobe Elements is a lot easier when they have learnt the basics with MM.

[CyberDrac]

The problem that I found was that the settings (predominately the "collections" that the user created) were written to a local settings location and therefore remain on the workstation and don't (and can't) roam around with the user, I did consider writing a script which copied it out on log off and back in on log in but RM refused to support that option.

 

We basically told the kids to save each project and all it's associated files/collection (movie clips, still images, audio) in a single folder for each project and that meant that recreating the collection was much simpler just a couple of clicks each time, instead of going off to hunt down the files repeatedly, but it did mean that having a shared resource of clips and the associated savings in disk space were negated.

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Windows-Movie-Maker-collections-frequently-asked-questions

Edited May 14, 2010 by CyberDrac

[BClark]

The problem that I found was that the settings (predominately the "collections" that the user created) were written to a local settings location and therefore remain on the workstation and don't (and can't) roam around with the user, I did consider writing a script which copied it out on log off and back in on log in but RM refused to support that option.

 

We basically told the kids to save each project and all it's associated files/collection (movie clips, still images, audio) in a single folder for each project and that meant that recreating the collection was much simpler just a couple of clicks each time, instead of going off to hunt down the files repeatedly, but it did mean that having a shared resource of clips and the associated savings in disk space were negated.

 

Windows Movie Maker collections: frequently asked questions

 

I did notice when the studnets logged on the same desktop they got there work back, but they are not always in the same calssroom:(

 

is there anyway I can redirect the path where MM puts files on the Local Disk Drive to the students Documents?

 

Also does anyone know if Windows Live Movie Maker have the same problem?

 

Thank you

[Jamo]

Windows Live MM is soooooo feature low, its worse than the original Movie Maker, the vista version is by far the best one that has been released. For the rest of us we could wait for VLMC (VLC movie creator), althoguh currently it is soooooooooooooo buggy!

[CyberDrac]

I'm afraid that I found no way or redirecting the "local settings" to something which will roam with the profile, and I did spend some considerable time researching this, although someone may know better.

[here_hare_here]

Didnt know about VLMC. If it gets as good as the player I cant wait!!

[Pete10141748]

Agreed, the new version of Movie Maker that comes on Windows 7 is dreadful, so many features are gone and it's impossible to create anything like you could in the older versions

[Jamo]

Agreed, the new version of Movie Maker that comes on Windows 7 is dreadful, so many features are gone and it's impossible to create anything like you could in the older versions

 

FWIW you can download the old Vista one from the MS Site still and it works on W7.

[Pete10141748]

FWIW you can download the old Vista one from the MS Site still and it works on W7.

 

Awesome, I'll pass that along to the techie, it was he who upgraded to W7 and then found MM to be lacking when trying to make things for our digital sinage system. Thanks!

[rdk]

One good thing about MM Live on Windows 7 is that it will happily work with .mod files from Canon video cameras. I actually think that the very simple, no learning curve, brain dead moron way of making quick and easy films on MM on W7 is very useful for kids, providing there is access to Premiere Elements or similar for more complicated projects.