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?

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10

u/CodenameFlux Windows 10 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 13 '25

Windows Movie Maker was official discontinued on 10 January 2017. That's 8 years, 5 months, and 2 days ago. Even before that, it wasn't included with Windows 7. Instead, people had to install it as a part of the Windows Live suite.

The reasons for discontinuation are: (1) Competition, and (2) the guy who maintained it left Microsoft during a layoff.

Please try the following instead:

  • LosslessCut (open-source, specializes in lossless trimming and merging)
  • MiniTool Movie Maker
  • CapCut
  • Clipify
  • DaVinci Resolve (feature-rich and complicated; it's the best)
  • Flowblade
  • Kdenlive
  • OpenShot
  • ShotCut
  • VidCutter
  • VSDC

3

u/SCphotog Jun 12 '25

I've tried several but not all of these, and finally settled on Kdenlive. It's been pretty solid, feature rich and gets the job done. The team behind it are very active.

1

u/CodenameFlux Windows 10 Jun 12 '25

I'm glad you found one that suits you. 😊

1

u/GermanBrit1820 Windows 2000 Jun 13 '25

Not CapCut

It's forcing you to subscribe to basic or pro

I hate it because 5 HD vids per month on free

but it's still fine

2

u/CodenameFlux Windows 10 Jun 14 '25

Oh! CapCut has gone to the Dark Force too? Well, alright, I'll amend my list.

1

u/Euchre Jun 13 '25

DaVinci Resolve is to OpenShot as GIMP is to Paint.NET.

You can have powerful and free application at the cost of heavy learning curve, or you can have a still very capable application that doesn't require much learning time to achieve results.

1

u/TrustLeft Jun 13 '25

which of those work offline and not in the cloud?

2

u/CodenameFlux Windows 10 Jun 14 '25

All of them work offline. I choose these because, unlike ClipChamp, they don't require logging in with an account every time.

0

u/Froggypwns Windows Insider MVP / Moderator Jun 12 '25

No Clipchamp? 😊

7

u/CodenameFlux Windows 10 Jun 12 '25

You have to admit some of its limitations are crazy, e.g., not being able to edit 1080p videos without a payment.

6

u/Froggypwns Windows Insider MVP / Moderator Jun 12 '25

As far as I can tell 1080P is in the free tier, I have Microsoft 365 so Clipchamp lets me export at 4K.

https://clipchamp.com/en/pricing/

7

u/CodenameFlux Windows 10 Jun 12 '25

You're not wrong; things have changed.

Originally, ClipChamp demanded $19/mo to edit 1080p videos. Now, it only has two price tiers and 1080p is on the free tier.

Still, it's registerware; and if I recommend it and somebody asks whether it uploads the entire video to Microsoft's cloud, I don't know the answer. All those items I listed don't have the drawbacks. By the way, does it upload to Microsoft cloud?

1

u/Froggypwns Windows Insider MVP / Moderator Jun 12 '25

I'll have to monitor it and get back to you, I don't know exactly how it works because it does appear that you need to upload something to edit it, but then when you go to render the export it uses a ton of CPU on the machine so I think it is being rendered locally, then you still have to download the finished product if you are not using the integration with things like OneDrive or YouTube. I'll monitor it with Glasswire and such and see.