What was your biggest problem with Windows ME?


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Dunno if I've already chimed in or not earlier, but I never had much of a problem with Windows ME. I didn't use it all that much (as most of my PCs went from 98 -> XP), but when I did use it... It worked fine, for all the things that I needed it to do.

I never had Windows ME myself (did use it slightly on a friends computer). I have used (on home computers) Windows 3.1, Windows NT 3.5/4.0, Windows 95/98, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 R2, and am currently using Windows 7. But from what I saw on my friends computer, he seemed to have a lot of problems with it (random blue screens from what I remember).

I didn't have any problems with it, but it was definitely flaky if you didn't make sure everything in your computer was on the HCL. It also came out at a time when OEMs were using the cheapest junk they could get. Combining those was like mixing oil and water.

It was just a weird mix of an OS.

- The Win9x kernel was already used for too long. Why drag it out longer?

- Focus should have stayed on 98SE. That actually brought new kernel features to the Win9x platform such as WDM drivers, still in use today.

- Microsoft themselves made this even more apparent by abandoning it so quickly. They stretched Windows 95 for 3 years, but then rapid fired Windows 98 (98), Windows 98SE (99), Windows Me (00), and then Windows XP (01) out the door.

- It was still a DOS-based OS and had all the limitations of a DOS-based OS, but they tried to hide the DOS-based part of the OS, preventing any of the positives of a DOS-based OS (real mode for old games).

- Just enough was changed to cause issues with some drivers. This was a hard target to hit for developers. It usually takes a year for decent drivers to be made. Developers were just getting around to supporting 98SE fully by the time Windows XP came out.

Driver support for Windows Me eventually matured enough right before all support for it was dropped. Most people were already using XP by the time good Me drivers came out.

For being a Win9x OS, it isn't bad with matured Me drivers.

High color tray icons, decent high-color icon set and Windows 2000 color scheme. I'd still rather use Windows 98SE if I were forced to use a Win9x OS.

  • 5 years later...

nevr had any trouble with it, but I had decent hardware.  AMD chips run it better than intel also.   most any AMD chip even the lowly 486dx66 or dx100 will do ME stable as long as you have a snappy hdd and at least 32mb of ram bare minimum. and a VLB (486) 3d accelerated graphics card.  I reccomend a k6-iii 400mhz or better, at least 256mb ram, and a 4mb AGP card. 
For optimum results, use an AthlonXP or Athlonxp-M of 1.2ghz or better, 384mb ram and a radeon x850 AGP card, and of course a good responsive hdd with the lowest latency and largest cache (8 or 16mb typically max for IDE but seen some with 32).  this system will be rock solid, assuming you also use a hardware-controller based NIC, and soundcard, and it will absolutely fly through anything 9x would run.  Athlon XP-M 1.6ghz, 384mb ddr400, radeonx850 AGP and win ME feels as snappy as my brand new fx-8350 does running win 7.

 

your right vista aint ME2, ME works right if yu have good parts. Vista lags and nags. though to be fair a lot of the early troubles that plagued vista were also responsible for giving ME a bad rep since in both cases hardware support took time to mature. the trouble is, ME matured, Vista didn't. Thats why MS had to redesign the core to make 7. that said, if given a choice between only being allowed those two, I would pick ME over vista every time.   I would pick 7 over all microsoft os's though and thats what I mainly use.  I still run ME on the athlon-xp machine for games, and on a VM for apps, and no troubles, but I love win7 and will keep using it for years.  Honestly 10 will probably be the new ME, because it introduces so much new stuff hardware will have to catch up. I just hope its as solid as 7 once drivers and software mature though.

It felt so new, it was great, that start up window introducing you to Windows. I set a new start up screen, installed my things and connected it to internet. Wow!
In one week my PC restarted 21 times but I still kept that OS for a while.

 

ScanDisk anyone lol

Could never get it to boot on my Celeron (533mhz??) - Diamond Stealth graphics card I THINK, I can't remember, that box was a POS. I remember getting it to boot without graphics drivers, but once they came on, over and out. 

 

Mind you, I was dual booting with NT4 at the time. 

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