ULTRABRA
Yes, I agree, a slide show is pretty simple in video editing terms.   But how about the audio, will Movie Maker deliver a high quality result?   The final file is going to be played at an event in a large space, and needs to be highest quality possible.

With a video just pull the finished video into Sonar and add the audio last. You can have "scratch track" audio while creating the video just mute the video's audio when you've gotten it into Sonar and add your high quality sound track as the very last step.

i need just the opposite...
i need to have the finished audio in first,
then take both video and still pictures and add them in precisely.
 
moviemaker can't quit do that, i've found out.
 

 
my vid done with movie maker
 
 
 

batsbrew
i need just the opposite...
i need to have the finished audio in first,
then take both video and still pictures and add them in precisely.
 
moviemaker can't quit do that, i've found out.
 

If your finished audio is one file that runs the entire time of the video, you can take that finished audio and make your video with it. After you export the video, if the audio is less than satisfactory, you can put the video in Sonar and re-apply the audio. I use this process with Filmora as I don't trust its audio (I don't recommend Filmora). That's how I did this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T2LK5XdN4U
 

I work  in the same direction as Bat....
 
Audio first, add pics after the fact.

Ya, if your needs are fairly simple and straight forward, Movie Maker will work. I've used it in the past.
 
If you want to step up to full blown video editing software, Cyberlink Power Director is probably the easiest to learn by far.
 
It has a wealth of features for video, photo and audio production. I picked it up last year, not having done any video work beyond Movie Maker and it was very easy to dive into right away. 
 
It's on sale right now as well. (Get one of the "suites" - more goodies included.)  
 
Oh...and get a good graphics card if you're working with HD video. Doesn't matter if your PC is a racehorse, you'll need a reeeaallly good graphics card to cope with HD.