r/windows • u/TheCelestialDawn • Jun 12 '25

General Question What happened to Windows Movie Maker?

It's the only movie software program I needed. Now it's gone?

178 Upvotes

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56

u/robster98 Windows 10 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

It was discontinued 16 years ago with the release of Windows 7. Back then, Microsoft were really pushing their “Windows Live” suite of apps available as a free download, including Windows Live Movie Maker. Unfortunately this was very stripped-down, even compared to the original XP/Vista Movie Maker and is now also discontinued.

Windows 10/11 has Clipchamp available to download from the Microsoft Store which is probably the closest Microsoft-made equivalent to Windows Movie Maker nowadays, but I would recommend you opt for the industry-standard DaVinci Resolve if you’re looking for free video editing software.

24

u/brii_ckk Jun 12 '25

I used clipchamp for a while and it's decent. Highly recommend davinci resolve though

8

u/TwinSong Jun 13 '25

Isn't Clipchamp freemium, as in some features locked behind a paywall?

1

u/viciecal Jun 13 '25

I believe very high quality exports need sub but other than that U good to use the editor as you want

15

u/AsrielPlay52 Jun 12 '25

Just use Clipchamp, recommending Davinci is like recommending someone a BMW when they only need a Subaru Swift

29

u/brii_ckk Jun 12 '25

Yeah but Davinci is a free BMW

7

u/TacosForThought Jun 12 '25

Yeah, probably more equivalent to a tank. People know how to drive a BMW, but the learning curve for something like Davinci is not nothing.

5

u/wunderbraten Jun 13 '25

People know how to drive a BMW,

Seeing how people drive a BMW, no. Just no.

0

u/TacosForThought Jun 13 '25

That's fair, but it may be easier to drive than Davinci, or, i mean, a tank.

1

u/vip17 Jun 13 '25

but if you just want simple video concatenation like movie maker than Davinci Resolve is absolutely learnable in a few minutes

1

u/TacosForThought Jun 13 '25

I haven't really tried recently. I'm not sure if that's the tool I used (but I think, maybe?) Certainly there's tutorials you can find, but I don't remember it being as straightforward/intuitive as something like movie maker, though.

Like, maybe you can watch a "few minutes" of video, but if you're only editing video once every couple years, you might have to rewatch the tutorials every time.

But .. maybe it's easier than I remember.

1

u/TrustLeft Jun 13 '25

and doesn't require using the cloud right?

6

u/The_B_Wolf Jun 12 '25

You can learn DaVinci Resolve in a couple of hours just by watching YouTube video. I did. I came from iMovie on Mac.

4

u/Alikont Jun 12 '25

DaVinci is actually great and kind of friendly. And free.

2

u/cjdacka Jun 12 '25

Subaru Swift?

2

u/ruintheenjoyment Jun 12 '25

He meant to say Supermarine Swift

1

u/TrustLeft Jun 13 '25

climpchamp is cloud only, it is NOT THE SAME!! You have to log in to online MS to use. Davinci seems harder but if it works with local account with no login then F champclip

12

u/TheCelestialDawn Jun 12 '25

I had no idea Cliphamp replaced it. It sounds like a Twitch emote.. I have tried it out and it seems to meet my needs so far.

Thank you to all the helpful and interesting replies in this thread.

4

u/patrlim1 Jun 12 '25

+1 on DaVinci

3

u/JetCrooked Jun 12 '25

I still use windows live movie maker to this day, wlsetup-all.exe my beloved

1

u/Goat_Pony Jun 13 '25

I think unlike Movie Maker 2012, Live movie maker will save to mp4 format correct?

1

u/JetCrooked Jun 14 '25

those are...two names for the same program? but yes it saves to mp4

1

u/HawaiianSteak Jun 12 '25

What was removed from the Windows Live Movie Maker that the previous Movie Maker had besides video capture?

1

u/Triabolical_ Jun 12 '25

I wrote the story of what happened to the good movie maker as a top level comment.

0

u/TrustLeft Jun 13 '25

they force you to give data to get davinci