Thanks for a long, thoughtful reply.

First, this was not a post to bash Microsoft. I used the WMM example to demonstrate the danger of overlooking seemingly innocuous details. As you (and lots of other people) know, I am a big fan of Windows 7 and really like the product. If anything, I’m hoping that Windows 7 won’t get tripped up by missing one or two small things that can make a big difference.

I also understand that W7 is still in pre-release, which is why the post closed with a hopeful tone that this will all get fixed before the final release. I’ll point out that my VoIP phone vendor hasn’t fixed the speed-dial problem, and I’ve been complaining about that for three years. I’ve given up hope on that one.

I’ve been in those design meetings as well, trying to understand real end user needs and balance that with sincere efforts to build great tools. It’s hard, that’s for sure. It is interesting, though, to see different perceptions of the same tool. I think WMM is really easy to use, as do my kids. I doubt that translates to someone who has never dealt with any sort of audio/video editing tool, but I wonder how much is fairly obvious when you get started with it for the first time.

I do have DVD Maker in my W7 install, but nothing natively points me to it. I also have PhotoStory running on W7 (the XP version runs just fine). I used it to create a photo montage for my daughter’s graduation, but had to manually create a video and pull it into DVD Burner myself. I can do the same with DVD Maker, but the current output options for WMM do not include any hi-res formats, so I did the final rendering on a Vista machine.

I am very hopeful that this will get fixed before October 22. Again, any project’s success depends on the all the details coming together. Managing all that is hard, whether you are releasing a new OS or running a small project. Good leaders stay on top of all the details and make sure they get handled.

Either way, as a consumer I completely understand the sentiment and realize everyone isn’t happy with every foot forward as inevitably sometimes there is a step back – reference other WLMM feedback around removal of timeline, multiple audio tracks, etc. Having spent some time in the Redmond mothership, I do find it a bit naive to think that designers and developers ‘knowingly ignore’ their consumers. Many people I worked with over the years take great pride in making software that millions of people use and often are completely obsessed with details – I was on a team once that looked at instrumented data from our usability labs and focus groups to find ways to remove individual mouse clicks – the rationale being that 2 extra mouse clicks * some very large number of consumers = an even larger amount of wasted productivity. Same holds true for other teams I personally spent time on that looked at ways to reduce reboots in situations like applying hotfixes, re-configuring network settings, installing software, etc. In that case, the effort to understand and resolve in code was the easy part, integrating into products ensuring no regressions or collateral damage was definitely much more difficult… I have been in my fair share of ‘disagreements’ between product development and marketing arguing over the value of making a change or ignoring a change based on our different points of view of providing value to the consumer. Fortunately this dialogue happens to the benefit of consumers – for those of you with experience in product development or engineering you know what I am talking about… To make a parallel – there are reasons why all the beautiful cars you see at the auto shows are prototypes and often never make it (or when they do are designed or function much differently) to market… Back on track in software, of course this fanaticism can often lead to solving problems where there aren’t any – believe me, I was a part of some of those too Does removing an extra mouse click per hour increase anyone’s productivity in a dramatic way? – maybe not… Does removing a few mouse clicks make the user feel the software is intuitive, simple and easy? – maybe…

Chuck – I am curious about the native DVD burner comment… On the PC I am on right now I am still running RC bits (Enterprise SKU) and DVD Maker is available via Start Menu. I did verify that WLMM does not currently integrate w/ DVD Maker nor does the WMM 2.6 download integrate in any elegant way but DVD Maker is there… Again without getting into top secret territory, if this is a sticking point I think you will be pleased to see how things transpire – stay tuned…

Thanks for the feedback. I find the desire to make WLMM “easier” interesting. The original WMM was wonderfully easy to use, and my kids were cranking videos in minutes. Coupled with the DVD burning, it was an awesome package.

I have used the old WMM 2.6 on Windows 7 and it runs fine. Except for the crucial link to a DVD burner. WMM 2.6 looks for Windows DVD Maker and integrates seamlessly. When it cannot find WDM, it provides no alternative to burn a DVD. The cool part of the WMM/WDM partnership was the amazingly simple DVD menus you could build and burn in just a few minutes.

There is no WDM available for download and use with Windows 7. At my house, we created the video with the old WMM on Windows 7, copied it to a USB drive, went to an old Vista machine, and loaded the video into WMM just to burn it. Not a good solution.

Again, the devil’s in the details. Windows 7 needs a native DVD burner to integrate with WLMM. A small nit, but one that will annoy many, many kids and parents at some point in the school year.

While not the most seamless process – you can also download Windows Movie Maker 2.6 which includes the timeline and other advanced features – this installs and works great on Windows 7. See http://tinyurl.com/2ul8mx for download link. I was recently putting together a video for my parents and was looking to add multiple audio tracks which the current version of WLMM does not support so that’s when I found version 2.6 available online. Hopefully this fills a gap for you until features driven by customer feedback is available in future WLMM versions…