Thank you and I am plowing through the links you provided. I should note that the hang-ups and slow rendering began after installing New Blue Titler pro 7 Express. Are there any known conflicts?

Yes -- all the new Blue effects are intensive CPU/GPU hogs. Your 7th Gen. i5 (which is barely the equivalent of a 3rd Gen. i7) and onboard graphics will most likely not handle them well. My system has a few of the same limitations, and I am unable to use some New Blue fX at all. If you have Titler Pro on the project you cited, you are lucky that it rendered at all.

New Blue normally pops up an 'inadequate system' message the first time you run a plugin if it foresees a problem. Dismissing the message will not dismiss the problem.

Right then!

1. Is there a way to bypass the New Blue plugins when opening a project - or do I need to uninstall to avoid the CPU load?

2. It looks like Movie Studio 17 is the last update so would you recommend going to the Pro version...and what would you recommend as minimum specs for a new computer (for home video creation). You've been incredibly helpful - and thank you!!

Re point 1 ... There is no way to avoid Movie Studio (or Vegas Pro for that matter) loading the NBFX plugins when they are in their default folder. If you need them for another program, then you could try moving them to another folder and direct that other program to that other folder if that facility is available. If you don't need the NBFX plugins for another NLE, then uninstalling them is the easiest way.

Re point 2 ... The minimum recommended specifications for Vegas Pro 19 are: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/specifications/#productMenu

Given that Movie Studio is a trimmed down version of Vegas Pro, you should find a lot of Vegas Pro to be familiar, but the best way to help you to decide is to install the trial version of vegas Pro.