How may I convert Quicktime files to AVI or MPG ??
The Quicktime player crashes my custom machine
and hijacks it, too.

Arrogant company, IMHO--ENOUGH SAID.

Please give a step-by-step guide if possible.

Thanks, Donald

apple is arrogant and hijacks your machine? please explain. Not sure how else to convert without quicktime.

QuickTime may be a little resource-hungry, but i've never seen it hijack a PC.

I use MKVToolnix when I need to remux .mov to something more usable.
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/

I transcode them to MPG with TMPGEnc & QTReader plugin.

Edit: I just noticed that on QTReader page there's also a MOV2AVI tool, haven't tried it though.

using mencoder, example of transcoding to xvid, mp3 in avi:

mencoder file.mov -o file.avi -oac mp3lame cbr:br=128 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=500

(in some rare cases you may even be able to simply repack them, 3ivx comes to my mind right now)

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML-single/en/MPlayer.html#mov