work in 2 different locations

[slide]

I assigned a project to my high school class in movie maker and we started it
in the library. Is there any way they can take it home on a flashdrive to
finish it at home...without losing the pictures?

 

[John Inzer]

I assigned a project to my high school class in movie maker and we
started it in the library. Is there any way they can take it home on
a flashdrive to finish it at home...without losing the pictures?

=====================================
Yes...you can edit the project on another machine but
it requires some work...

The .mswmm project file does not include the source
files (pictures, video clips, music files, etc...)

So...it has been suggested that when a project will
be edited from more than one computer...it's a good
idea to archive *all* the source files on removable
media (CD, DVD, Flash Drive, Memory Card, Etc...)
and work from that source.

Then you would open the .mswmm file in Movie Maker...
when you see the Red Xs that indicate the source files
are missing...Right click the Red Xs and Browse to the
files on the removable media...this should re-establish
the path.

FWIW...any project created or edited and resaved on a
Vista machine will no longer be compatible with Windows
XP Movie Maker 2.1.

Good luck...

--

John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[Saga]

Adding to John's info...

The project needs to have ben saved in the same path on both PCs. For example,
if you are at the library and your project is in c:\Public\Work then it must also be
in c:\Public\Work in the PC at home. If you save the MM project to the usb flash
drive that is mapped to e: at the library, but its f: at home, you'll have problems.

Obviously, these problems can be solved following John's recommendation
("Right click the Red Xs and Browse to the files on the removable media"); however,
you will have to repeat this every time you switch PCs AND teh usb flash drive
is mapped to a different letter.

To work around this, you can do 1 of two things:

1. Use a disk whose drive letter is present on both PCs. For example, many PCs
have the C: drive, so create a folder there and keep your project there. Once it
is time to move to the other PC, copy everything (as also noted in John's post)
to the usb flash drive. Once you get to the other PC, make sure the same folder
is present on the PC and copy everything back from the usb flash drive to the
C: folder. Now work from there.So every time that you move from one PC to
another, you 1) copy from the work folder to the usb flash drive and on the other
PC you 2) copy everything from the usb flash drive to your work folder on the
common drive. This has the disadvantage that it is a lot of copying, but you really
don't need to copy everything from the flash drive to the work folder, just the files
that have changed. The advantage is that this also forces you to have a back up.

2. A more elegant solution, so to speak, is to use subst command to map your
usb flash drive to a drive letter that will be the same on both PCs. For example,
if your work folder on the usb flash drive is e:\MM\MyProject you can map this
using subst to, say, Q:, so that your work folder will be q:\MM\MyProject. Doing
this mapping on both PCs will guarantee that your project will load from the same
path on both PCs. Clearly, the disadvantage here is that you do not "automatically"
create a backup, so you need to take that into consideration.

Regards, Saga