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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u/Triabolical_ Jun 12 '25

I know the real story. I wrote the UI for DVD maker in Vista and was on the movie maker team.

DVD maker was a popular program, and the team planned a new product we named storyteller. Think of the Ken burns effect for photos but with videos, canned content, etc. A whole bunch of different themes.

Then a reorg happened and we got moved in with the picture folks under their management. Their second level manager said that the team could decide what to do, which was great, and specifically said we could proceed.

I wrote a prototype with still photos only, we tested it in the usability lab with customers, and they loved it.

Then four weeks later our manager changed his mind and told us we couldn't do storyteller and that we should do a rewrite of movie maker.

Of the ten or twelve people on the team, all but two left in a month.

45

u/GisseGisseGiss Jun 12 '25

Ahh the various impacts all those managers have had.. Thanks for sharing. Love these stories!

29

u/Triabolical_ Jun 12 '25

I almost go fired because of what I said to my second level, and he said I was insubordinate in his feedback about me that year.

Luckily, my new managers loved me and said "that doesn't sound like Triabolical_", so they just ignored it.

1

u/Contrantier Jun 15 '25

I hope he burst a few screws upon realising they shoved his complaint aside lmao

1

u/Triabolical_ Jun 15 '25

In a perfect world, yes, but the flow of information in the review system is - as far as I know, and I was in management part of the time - only one direction. In one case I got asked by a friend from years before for feedback on a guy who was my second level at one point and threw all the teams that reported to him under the bus for mistakes he made, and that was a nice opportunity.

I never heard back on that one, but I did notice that his next position did not have the same level of responsibility as the previous one, which is really all one can hope for in a big company.