In a January 15, 2003 email to Jim Allchin and other executives, Bill Gates detailed his frustrating experience trying to download Movie Maker from Microsoft.com. Gates described the site as "so slow it is unusable," noting it timed out five times before loading. He struggled to find the software amid "totally confusing" download names and failed searches for both "moviemaker" and "movie maker."

Directed to Windows Update, Gates encountered multiple control downloads, "weird dialog boxes," a 17MB download, a 6-minute install that froze his machine, and a mandatory reboot that lost his Outlook state. Returning to Windows Update, he faced another confusing folder structure before finally downloading Movie Maker, which required a separate Windows Media Series 9 installation taking 7 minutes.

Gates concluded the process failed as Movie Maker did not appear in Add/Remove Programs. He expressed disappointment that "Windows Usability has been going backwards" and criticized program management groups for not driving usability issues, calling the experience a "systematic degradation."