Resolved Windows Movie Maker (2.1) hangs - revisted

In August 2009, user Evan Omo started a thread regarding the 'hanging' of a computer when saving a slideshow as a movie. Evan Omo indicated that by creating short slideshows, then saving each as a movie, and later combining the movies, the hanging ceased.

Because of the age of that thread, it expired....

To Evan Omo, or other WindowsBBS posters, what program was used to combine the movies AFTER you saved them separately?

Current situation... WinXPSP3 machine (1.49GB RAM, 20GB HD). Initially, the system would hang, during the drag-and-drop phases of creating the slideshow (15MB, jpg images only). When saving the slideshow, a 'not enough memory' warning would appear. After shutting down a number of processes and disabling anti-virus, the slideshow could be saved. I added RAM, upping the amount to its current 1.49GB. The system still hangs during drag-and-drop. It also hangs when saving, but it hangs without the 'not enough memory' warning. Though adding the additional RAM help (it was too low in the first place), there must be more to it. I think shutting down processes and anti-virus, prior to starting work on the slideshow, is the best thing, but that just seems so ridiculous to do. I've come across many search engine hits regarding the Hanging of Movie Maker. Though installing more RAM might be the cure, since the system appears to reach some sort of bottleneck when using Movie Maker (this 'hanging' issue only occurs when using Movie Maker), I'm wondering if anyone can shed some additional light on this issue, as well as suggest another program that will import Movie Maker slideshow files.

 

Thanks for following up.

@Steve - The total size of the slideshow, after using Movie Maker's 'Save Project' link was 15mb (1200+ images).

I never attempted to create a *wmv from the saved project. With the constant freezing, getting all the images into the slideshow has not been achieved. Though I have since moved the user to another program to create the slideshow, I want to solve the Movie Maker issues on this user's computer. After doing a little more digging, I found that the user would delete an image from the collection after adding it to the slideshow. Clearly, this cannot be a good thing, since the image in the slideshow is still linked to the image's location in the collection (right?). As I indicated in my OP, after stopping other processes/services, shutting down anti-virus (Avira), and disconnecting the the user's DSL connection, the project was saved.

I will definitely look into the codecs issue.

 

Yes, the total size of the slideshow was way over 15MB. As I wrote, I have since moved the user to another program (Photo Story 3), but I plan on recommending Movie Maker to another WinXP user. Thanks.

 

The user that was having the 'hanging' issue with Movie Maker has moved on to Photo Story. Since the user I recommended Movie Maker to will not be using it until early January 2011, its difficult to say whether my original issue has been solved. As recommended, I will close this thread. Should the same 'hanging' issue occur in January, I will point that user to this forum. Thanks.