Why is Windows ME unstable?

[Pc_Madness]

I would like to know why Windows ME is unstable other than the fact that its not NT kernel. Don't want any flaming or anything, just intelligent answers. Thanks.

586584562[/snapback]

You see, when Microsoft first built Windows 3.1, the hampsters inside were very healthy, young and eager to become movie stars. By the time Windows ME came around, they were getting on abit, and weren't as eager to run on there little wheels because of how Microsoft tricked them out of their fame.

[jamend]

Thankfully I only used ME for months, if not shorter due to Windows 2000 being in testing and at the time I was one the lucky ones that had 100% complete hardware support for the NT5.0/2000 betas.

586585074[/snapback]

Windows Me came out after 2000.

[AltecXP]

IMO windows 2000 is the best version ever, if they had a x64 version I would still be using it.

[goatsniffer]

I used in on a HP Pavilion with a 500MHz Celeron for about a year.

It was more stable than 98SE for me, but it had a lack of driver support for the hardware.

I also installed it on a virtual machine to play around with it, and it seemed fine.

ME does have a huge memory leak. That will eventually crash your machine, and you can't do a darned thing about it.

[Elliot B.]

You see, when Microsoft first built Windows 3.1, the hampsters inside were very healthy, young and eager to become movie stars.  By the time Windows ME came around, they were getting on abit, and weren't as eager to run on there little wheels because of how Microsoft tricked them out of their fame.

586807405[/snapback]

Why have they performed so well on Windows XP? Will Vista function on the same hamsters?

[Pc_Madness]

Why have they performed so well on Windows XP? Will Vista function on the same hamsters?

586807795[/snapback]

The Windows NT series is powered by rats. They have a better power to age ratio than hampsters and they also lack ambition like there more socially accepted counterparts. :)

[uberjon]

well, when i bought my computer(5 yrs ago), the guy gave me WinME. no major probs at all. u just remove system restore, tweak it a bit & its pretty much stable. i DOES hang when it starts up sometimes but thats a rare occurence.

i'm still using it (dual boot with XP) but my preference is still for ME. call it 1st love or whatever.. :shiftyninja: ....

[stereopixels]

i'm still using it [Windows ME] (dual boot with XP) but my preference is still for ME. call it 1st love or whatever..:shiftyninja:: ....

I call it crazy. But whatever floats your boat. :DD

[springzq]

I don't thind windows ME is unstable.

[techbeck]

MicroShaft rushed the release of this...probably for no real reason than to make some extra $$$

Why I wish someone had the balls to compete with MS, maybe someday....

[chconline Veteran]

Hey it works just fine for me. Quit dissing it.

[Panacik]

Old thread? :o

[seta-san]

windows me could be pretty stable if you disabled alot of crap like system restore. It's definately a system you don't want to put under the stress of installing, uninstalling, reinstalling lots of software and having to defrag every night. WindowsME could be a good strictly offline system with a limited number of apps installed. I personally had no more problems with it then i did with 98 but certain systems were incredibly unstable, perhaps due to faulty firmware or system drivers.

[betasp]

I think because it was the hybrid between Win2K and Win98 with some new code that found its way into XP, it wreaked havok on drivers. In some instances, it ran really solid... but when it didn't work, it was almost impossible to track down the root cause.

[RJARRRPCGP]

basicaly Me was indeed rushed but because of some nt based stuff that was added to a dos based product as an experiment,also windows me is very picky with hardware(it does not like cheap hardware and does not prefer isa devices)i have it running on an old comp and it runs fine(the pc is 10 years old)but on a few of the systems i have, me would not work well,dos based products tend to die afterawhile wheras nt based oses tend to last along time.

Actually, Windows XP and Windows 2000 are the ones that are picky about hardware.

Windows XP in late 2001 and 2002 (pre service pack 1) were rushed, IMO.

A GeForce 2 MX video card I had was still usable but had issues and definitely one major and strange issue with Windows XP.

Windows XP would crash or give me repeated error messages, even when the hardware was fine! But that was when Windows XP pre service pack 1 was the newest OS in town. Windows XP and Windows 2000 definitely don't like many older hardware, you can almost guarantee a crash or error messages galore!

[Havin_it]

Had to give my two penneth since I'm writing from ME right now... :yes:

This beast in front of me (a 2001 Compaq, so you can forget hardware support, thanks HP) was my gf's first laptop. I previously had had a Win95 machine but knew nothing about computing and had killed it stone dead BIOS and all.

This thing was a revelation to me. I used it far more than she ever did, learnt a lot about computing the hard way, and got it sent back to the workshop 3 times (so far!). It's always been temperamental, but a fair amount of that has been proven to be down to hardware issues or me being over-ambitious with third-party software.

Two days ago I did the ritual format+restore (how many times now? Don't ask...) after its latest trick of frequently timing-out for a few seconds. Not a BSOD-er or anything, just a bit disconcerting ('Will it resume? Or just die?') but she's convinced another workshop trip is called-for. And, natch, service folks won't bring a Win ME machine in unless you've formatted+restored...

Cue two days of eerie calm. I haven't replaced ZoneAlarm yet, and am using a non-realtime antivirus, but even so I can't get over how there's just - no noise at all - from this box. I'm typing away, and it's as if the thing ain't even switched on... something quite magical about it.

Most people (MS included) were able to sweep ME under the carpet due to XP coming hot on its heels, and 2K creeping into the retail space as well. For those of us who were stuck with it for years, I guess there's a bit more fondness (or call it Stockholm Syndrome if you prefer :wacko: ). I wonder how it would be remembered if it had had a longer stretch as the main consumer/OEM offering - a bit less caustically I bet...

[gertin]

I remember using ME for a short period when my dad bought a new computer (HP) in 2001, unfortunately he bought it right before Windows XP became mainstream. It was an OEM version that was preinstalled on the computer, and it still crashed every day. KERNEL32.DLL seemed to be the cause every time.

Anyway, I installed Windows XP a few weeks later and I've never used ME since. :)

[Havin_it]

I remember using ME for a short period when my dad bought a new computer (HP) in 2001, unfortunately he bought it right before Windows XP became mainstream. It was an OEM version that was preinstalled on the computer, and it still crashed every day. KERNEL32.DLL seemed to be the cause every time.

Anyway, I installed Windows XP a few weeks later and I've never used ME since. :)

Heh, wierd. Since writing that yesterday I've had the first crash with the 'clean' system, and yup - KERNEL32.DLL was the culprit. This was while trying to disable Java support in Openoffice.org.

Ho hum, back to business as usual :|

[leesmithg]

We have it installed on a laptop, never crashed once in 4 years.

[NightmarE D]

I'm completely convinced that when Windows ME first came out there was a very large batch of corrupted disks. I used ME on another computer for about 2 years and I honestly never had one single issue with it. It ran fine.

As a matter of fact I just might go install it on an old computer I got Windows 98 on for older games. I'm pretty fond of Windows ME

[mmannai]

I only Used WIN ME once, But I can Tell You this IT is Worse than WIN 95!

I rember once I saw the Timeline of WINDOWS and I was amazed! Win2k came before Win ME!

And Win 2k is much better!

experienced:-------------------> Win 95__>win 98---> Win 98SE------> Win 2k----> Win XP