Windows Movie Maker (Windows XP)

Windows Movie Maker 2 is so easy a child could use it--an incredibly patient child born to filmmaker parents who didn't mind restarting this application every few minutes. From the get-go, you get the feeling that this isn't going to be an easy program to like; Microsoft's installer doesn't play nice. It gives the user no input on program location or other options. The plain interface promises simplicity with drag-and-drop storyboard options, though during testing, it was more like drag and freeze. The program typically froze while importing MPG video files. If importing worked, Movie Maker 2 would quit responding when clips were placed on the storyboard. On the rare occasion that our testers made it to the storyboard, the program would freeze when adding one of the numerous effects. There were so many hurdles to creating a short video that no editing seemed preferable to using this software. What's more, uninstalling the program was even more tedious than installing it. It should be no surprise, then, that we can't recommend this freeware for any user.