WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER

Zoom, Crop and Pan your Videos
danpancrop.xml & danpancrop.dll
Right-click the above two and "Save Target as" into
C:\PROGRAMFILES>MOVIEMAKER>SHARED>ADDONTFX or similar location. If you don't have an ADDONTFX you will need to create this folder.
Open Windows Movie Maker, and you'll see Dan's new additions in the "View Video Effects" section

CYBERLINK POWER DIRECT EXPRESS
This program can be used to change WMV into AVI

VIRTUAL DUB  (AVI friendly)

Cropping your Video to zoom in and show desired area only
File>Open Video
Video>Filters>Add null transform>Crop
Audio>No Audio
move x and y co-ordinates to select the area you want the video to show

Change your AVI into GIF
File>Open Video
Export>Animated Gif
(warning! this will make zillions of frames! XD)