I don't want to split hairs here, although it's technically four video tracks & four audio tracks, at maximum.

When you open up VMS, they show you 3 video + 3 audio. You can add 1 video + 1 audio to that.

Just right click near one of the track numbers and the second one down is Insert Video, or Audio Track .

Just click + drag your clips onto the timeline wherever you want them to go.

Good point. Do you want to have more "tracks" (i.e., separate tracks that can overlay one another) or do you want multiple clips/events (i.e., segments of video you want to add to your project)?

I wanted to add images fly in on different locations of the screen and i thought the easiest way to do that is to add more tracks and then adjust the parameters of the individual track. I havent (as yet) worked out how to do that using the one track. Not sure if it can be explained over the net but this is what i am doing.
I add stills to a video track and set up a fly-in transition. Then i go to the track motion tab and change where the picture is located on the screen. Now what i need to know is how i am able to make the next pic fly-in at a different location without it affecting the first pic.
Can you recommend a good tutorial site or books,dvds that could help me work through the detail of using vegas? I just assumed this was the full version.Does anyone know whether you can upgrade to the full version rather than pay for the full version outright once purchasing platinum

Upgrade is possible.
Pls. look under "My Account" (in the upper line on this screen) and then look under "My Software" - there you see the possible upgrades and prices for them.
Before you upgrade pls. also check the Internet for offers - some times there are incredibly good offers :-)

The upgrade from Vegas Movie Studio to Vegas costs more than 400$ but if you want only more video/audio tracks you can switch to other good entry-level softwares (but not so good as Vegas MS :-) ) like Magix or Premiere Elements and pay less than $100.

There are some creative workarounds available. Depending on how long your pictures move and how many are moving at once, you can try something like this ...

Fly in the first image on track 1. When it gets to it's resting spot, create a still of it in that spot and place that on track 4. Fly in the second image on track 2. When it gets to it's resting spot create a still of images 1 and 2 together and replace what's on track 4 with this new still. Fly in the third image on track 3 ... etc. Now, track 1 is available for the fourth image. As long as you never have more than 3 at a time moving, you can build up as many images as you wish this way.

Create as much of your video as you can using only 4 tracks. Render this to a new .avi file. Start a new project with this .avi file on track 4. Use tracks 1-3 to add new images flying in. Render this all to a new .avi file that now has 7 tracks' worth of images. Place this on track 4 in a new project and repeat as much as necessary.

As far as upgrading, you did just miss an opportunity. When new versions of Vegas are released many folks can obtain it for only $150 or so. Sadly he window for the last version closed a couple months ago. However, if you can wait a while, perhaps by this time next year you'll be able to get Vegas 8 for a cheap price.

Scope out online stores like Amazon or B&H PhotoVideo. They often list older versions for dirt cheap. Lots of people recently bought Vegas 6 from B&H for $99, then got the free upgrade to Vegas 7 from SONY. Even if you don't get an upgrade, an older version is probably still way more than you need.

thx for that.

thx for that. If i am rendering video to capture all the tracks to one track and saving it as an avi.file. What are the best settings to select in the save as "file type" and "template" settings so that i can then import them back into the project so that it frees up the other tracks.