I’ve used Microsoft’s products professionally and personally since 1995, you could say I am a loyal customer. In the early days I would have claimed to even be a fan.

Over the years, though, the company has changed so much, that I feel the compelling urge to shake my head at their “business practices”. The sense of pioneer spirit and world community of software developers is completely gone. It has been replaced by corporate greed.

Sometimes, however, little old me feels the sweet smile of victory creeping up onto my face when I accomplish something that big, bad Microsoft didn’t want me to.

I recently purchased an Asus Transformer Mini, which looks like a Surface Pro clone, but costs about a third – that alone is a small victory. It comes with Windows 10, which I am still not a fan of for various reasons. I was sort of OK with my purchase, until I realized that I can’t have MS Movie Maker on it?? They discontinued, and tried to eradicate, that entire package of Life Essentials software tools some time in January 2017.

That’s when my hunter’s instinct kicked in! With a little help from Google, my best friend professionally and personally since 1998, I found an old offline installer for MS Life Essential 2012, in German – because you need the version that matches your operating system’s language – and got my Movie Maker installed on this new notebook.