converting .mov to .wmv and using Windows Movie Maker -- terrible quality -- Help!

My Config:
New Laptop Studio 16 Intel Core i3-350M 2.26GHz (3M cache) 64 bit - 4GB Sh
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Disk Drive shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz

Just came off Inspiron 1520/XP ... new laptop was to assist in faster making/editing of videos ... however ... using the same and having tried several other video editors ... converting .mov to .wmv ... all of them not degrade the video quality to such a point as to render it unusable ... When I got a fair conversion I tried using it Windows Movie Maker 2.6 which is what I always used ... the resulting video degraded further to a point of making it worthless to use ... I fiind Windows Movie Maker Live is a joke as it is inferior to the prior version and very limiting but tried it anyway just to see if it would work ... The only mode that was OK was the highest definition ... yet when I uploaded it to my regular video host ... it was degraded and once again rendered worthless ...\

Does anyone out there use their computer for converting and editing videos and are you having this problem and have you figured a way around it ... I do like Movie Maker 2.6 alot and would like to continue using it ... First I need good conversion tool that works with Windows 7 ... and then I need Windows 7 to work with Movie Maker ... Thanks!

Google is your friend. My after a 5 second search:
http://www.ojosoft.com/how-to-conver...converter.html

About Movie Maker, you can copy it from a Vista computer in the Program Files folder.

Yes ... I didn't want to purchase one without trying it first ... I was able to locate a couple of free converters direct mov to wmv however the movie quality was degraded ... don't know what the problem is ... I downloaded Movie Maker 2.6 straight and it works fine in Windows 7 ... But still have movie quality issues once movie is saved.