I've kept the old version od imovie (6.0.4) through three migrations and now have it on a mac 10.6.8. i prefer it to the new one, but it has recently begun to give me serious problems. is it becoming obsolete?

Question

i've always thought imovie 6.0.4 was the superior product. i've used it edit semi-profesional films. its easy and intuitive, and always gives you what you want, while looking profesional. i have final cut pro, which i use when i have more time or the project is of more importance, but i still love the ease and simplicity of the old imovie. i've migrated it over 4 computers and it has worked fine till about a week ago. it now takes up to 20 minutes to load, frequently drops out. leaves phantom and relic snipets of audio. is there any way i can fix this problem and keep my beloved imovie 6.0.4? can download it from a third party? are the issues because the .app is going obsolete or are there just new bugs on my computer? i've recently uninstalled all my adobe products and put them onto another computer, could that be it? help me obi won, you're my only hope!

Answer 1

klaus 1,
thanx for the reply. i'm on a 10.6.8 snow leopard.
yes, it did arrive via migration, but had been working well for over 2 years, and two years before that on a 10.5, where it had migrated from a mac book g4 where i used it regularly. through all that time and migration, not a single problem
i can't pinpoint the exact 'original' problem, because i'm currently working on two different editing jobs (one serious [a kickstarted campaign] the other, not so much, for my son's pre-school graduation, i was making the school a little video for their website). so during this time, i'm using a combo of; imovie, adobe premiere and final cut pro. and i've had so much pulsing through my computer (and external hard drives), literally hundreds of gigs of HD video, tons of tiff and jpeg files, and much mp4 and aif music files. i often had three or four major applications all open and running simultaneously, so who knows how this all started. but one day, i flipped open my mac, and just clicked on imovie, not a file mind you, but just the icon, and it took like 2 minutes to load (usually 5-10 seconds). i made sure all other apps and windows were closed and tried it again - now 3 minutes to load and it drops out mid edit. and it just kept getting worse.
AND THEN, AFTER IWROTE ABOVE 'I  -  ME' MADE THINGS, MUCH, MUCH WORSE.
i was aware that there is an old quicktime 7 that gets installed in a 10.6.8 to supplement the newer quicktime x and the various other programs, including imovie, that still use qt 7. i was a bit confused why there even is an icon for qt 7 in the utilities folder, since you never open it directly, it just works behind the scenes. but whatever.
after imovie started acting up, i looked up to see what programs that imovie uses, thinking the problem might be there and found an article that said there was actually an even earlier version of quicktime, (qt 7.0.3 i think) that was specifically made for imovie, but there hadn't been enough major changes in qt to bother imovie, but (there is always a but) there were changes coming that would begin to affect imovie. since the article (i wish i could link it here, sorry) was a year old, i  thought maybe the damaging upgrade was already made. so i found this older version of quicktime (the 7.0.3 version) and tried to install it, thinking it would fix my issue, i'd finish the edit, then delete it. but when i tried to open it, it told me, a newer version of of qt was on my computer and i couldn't install it. so very impulsively and idiotically i uninstalled quicktime 7, thinking i would just reinstall it later. but that's when everything went wrong.
SO I MUST STRESS THIS TO EVERYONE! NEVER NEVER NEVER UNINSTALL QUICKTIME.
apparently quick time x is preinstalled into the 10.6.8, in such a way, that its interconnected with like 12 other programs, that will all begin to act erradictly after it is uninstalled. then those 12 programs will each affect 5 more and soon, your computer, then your hard-drive is blown. i tried reinstalling quicktime, but could not. i tried every conceivable way, but could not even find it in any folder. it was gone. and so was qt x.
so when i uninstalled quicktime 7, it affected quick time x in such a way that it stopped working, then could not be found. then all h**l broke loose. every program began to run slowly and started dropping out. functionally, the computer became so slow, it was useless. even typing became slow. i still did not know about the 'never uninstall quick time rule' yet, so i looked for the problem else where.
i opened up activity monitor, and there were no programs eating up cpu, nothing that suspicious. but when i switched activity monitor to show usage in a descending order, i saw kernel task was using between 500-700% cpu. my fans started running furiously and my battery life dropped in half. i would switch off the computer, start it with reset, things would go well for a half hour, then kernel would spike, the computer would get red hot and the fans would go as fast as propellers. since the kickstarter campaign i was working on was on deadline, i had to keep working. so i went out and bought a laptop stand that allows airflow under the computer and has its own fan to cool the computer, that worked for about a day. but since the fan on the stand ran on power from the usb of my computer, my battery life went from very good, to completely dead. nothing. accidentally unplug the cord for a millisecond second, and the computer turns off. when i restart, the time is set to the day and time i bought the computer, and would undo my internet, and i'd have to reset my whole connection.
i spent twelve straight hours, through the night, using recovery programs, like pacifist, stellar phoenix, and others, but could not get quick time back. finally (like 4 hours ago) i called apple, and although i have no warranty or apple care, they took my call and we tried some things, which didn't work.
i had already run disk utility and exhausted all other options. and i was told by apple that since my computer was preloaded (no discs) i could not, erase and reboot, which wasn't really an option anyway.
so apple being the best run company in the country, sends me a new down loadable version of imovie, quick time 7 and quick time ten.
it hasn't arrived yet, but how cool is that?
i have to say though, i'm a bit worried about reinstalling by disc and have no real guarantee that everything will return to normal.
not to mention my battery is dead and snow leopard gives you no way of getting to it. it has to be replaced at an official apple certified store.
so lesson here, never, ever, never, uninstall quicktime. i hope no one else makes this mistake.
thanx and good luck.