Windows ME = good os, fast, stable

C

Chaballaman

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2001
Messages
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Because, it is neither fast, nor stable. It also has serious security, compatibility, and user-friendliness problems. It is also too restrictive and offers far too few features for true enthusiasts.

People will always have opinions about OS's and your appreciation of seriously flawed placeholder OS (until Mickeysoft could release XP) is obviously in the minority. ME may be alright for the masses (I don't agree however), but XP will serve them (and us) much better.
 
i witnessed the horrors of windows ME at my uncles house, it only shut down properly 1/3 times. It locked up at what seemed like random times. It ran slow cause it was bloated.
 
Spare-Flair said:
(Edited for content by me to emphasize a key point that Spare-Flair made ;) ...It also has serious security and compatibility problems....
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Security? No kidding! The worst rigs I have ever worked on in this regard have been ME machines. It seems like spyware and other infections gravitate to them.

Compatibility? Try putting an ME machine on a network with a networked printer, and watch what weird things tend to happen after awhile.

While we are here this Sunday morning, Bill Gates is at church catching up on his
Hail Marys because he released ME, sin against God that it is. :D
 
you'd kidding right?
you're not seriously saying that me is a great os. i mean..in comparison to 95a perhaps. but in the light on 2000 or xp, i hardly see a bug filled, dos based os really holding a candle.
 
Cigolon said:
you'd kidding right?
you're not seriously saying that me is a great os. i mean..in comparison to 95a perhaps. but in the light on 2000 or xp, i hardly see a bug filled, dos based os really holding a candle.
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I wouldn't even compare it to 95a.

From what I have seen, ME is sorta hit or miss. If you've only ever had one computer, one OS, and that OS was ME, then it seems to be the latest and greatest since sliced bread.

If you've ever been in the administrator's seat, if only for 2 computers, then it sucks something fierce. I have had to admin it, and I forced the place I work to upgrade, otherwise I would have quit.

I can say with some authority that it is a huge steaming pile of shit, and if you don't see that, well whoopee doo, and good for you.
 
i tried to hook up my dad's me box to our home network after i set it up but that hosed his dial up connection to his work place. we had to bring the computer to their IT guys so they could reinstall the software. because of that i dual booted him with winxp for when he wanted the real internet. now the IT guys should be able to install the dialup stuff in XP but i think the dual boot confused them when we asked them too. my dad's workplace really needs a vpn so my dad can connect through our cable modem and not suffer dial up. (the dial up is not used for internet but company email, patient records, etc [it's a hospital system])
 
An ME run hospital...Now there's a scary thought.
 
Now, there are a few people that didn't have trouble with ME. However, for the vast majority, ME was a bloated, less stable, crap-filled OS.

The only thing ME did better over 98 was boot faster. It was less stable, slower, and more of a pain to work with than 98. I ran it for about a month before I decided to go to Win2k. Just my experience. ME probably could've been better, but it seems like MS just wanted to get it out the door, even with the amount of bugs it had.
 
ME had some horrid resource management (though mostly a product of the 9x kernel), but somehow was less stable and more buggy than the previous consumer release, Windows 98SE. Of course, if you never used Windows 98 and jumped from something like 3.1 -> ME, then I can see what would make you think such crazy thoughts.

ME BSODed on me more times than Windows 95b did, and they included the System Restore function because MS knew that you'd have to use it all the time. :p

And yes, I had used ME for about 2 years before I got Windows XP, which is probably the greatest OS leap I made in the Windows world. If you can afford a Radeon 9700, I would think you could scrape together $90 and buy Win XP Home OEM. It'd be a very very wise investment for the longevity of your system.
 
me isnt that bad, i have a friend and he has ME and all he does is play flash games on the internet and doesnt do anything much. he had Me for 2 years and still didnt reinstall windows. and it is fast too. its just my opioon :)
 
Me is a 9x OS and like all 9x OSes it comes with outdated memory management (its memory management is almost exactly like Windows 3.1's!), no system file protection, no protected memory, etc.... The list goes on, and on, and on.....


Some tests where done on this very forum a few months ago (I believe it happened before the big stretch of downtime) it showed all OSes where EXACTLLY the same. 2k/XP pulled ahead slightly by a few points in some cases, but nothing spectacular.


If you have old system and it works for you, then sure stick with it. But if you are going to build a gaming system with 512MB or more of RAM then go with a modern OS. The outdated memory management in 9x just doesn't make good use of that much RAM...
 
Ahahahahahahahahaha.... :D
Your kidding right?
personally i never had problem with it, it runs fast and stable. i have two similar setups with win xp n win me n one with me seem to run faster overall n in games. why does everybody here hate ME so much?
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ROFL! :D
 
ME..ugh!! the horror stories i could share about that OS! yes, many people were perfectly happy with it, but by and large, those people were just using it for your regular Internet, email, IM stuff. I'm sorry, but when it came to doing any kind of serious work or gaming, it was a royal piece of shit...bloated, buggy crap.

now if you said 98SE was good, fast and stable, i'd agree with you. 98SE was the best OS for gaming for a long time, even after win2k came out. It took quite a few patches and SP's before 2k became a decent gamiing platform, and by then XP had hit the scene.
 
I had ME on a computer that only ran word( not connected to the net at all). After a few months I decided to pull some old files out because the Hd was getting filled up. It ran like a mule ( slow) and started crashing. I thought it needed a de-frag. So after the the de-frag it crashed and wouldnt boot up, I had to use the system restore discs and redo the whole system with all my work lost, same thing happed to a few people I know that tryed to de-frag ME, I would rather run any , ANY other OS then win Me , its is utter crap, just my 2 cents
 
I always had lots of problems with WinME compared to the good, old, fast and stable Win98SE..i miss it :(

OldMX
 
I never had one problem with ME. I don't run it now, of course, but at the time it ran fine for me - not one hiccup.

And yes, I do consider myself a "true enthusiast". Maybe I just had good hardware.
 
Guys hes trolling... Don't feed the trolls, they bite!
 
that operating system killed my favorite harddrive a quantum fireball 13 gig... =*(
how you might say? so many crashes.. oh so many crashes.. and the numerous formats it had to endure.
 
XOR != OR said:
I wouldn't even compare it to 95a.

From what I have seen, ME is sorta hit or miss. If you've only ever had one computer, one OS, and that OS was ME, then it seems to be the latest and greatest since sliced bread.

If you've ever been in the administrator's seat, if only for 2 computers, then it sucks something fierce. I have had to admin it, and I forced the place I work to upgrade, otherwise I would have quit.
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This is, on the whole, probably the biggest issue with Windows Me. As a standalone, one had a very decent chance of experiencing few problems and fair to good performance. Once networked with one or more other computers, it begins to get problematic more often than not. That's a simple way to put it.

Now, for the more complex list:
  • If you had hardware with good support (read: expensive or proprietary), Me ran well and was pretty stable. For anyone who did not have such hardware—meaning anyone who did not spend some cash-ola—was going to have trouble. Even if it was just your sound card that wasn't one of the popular brands (SoundBlaster was preferred), your whole system would be prone to interrupt issues and performance hiccups.
  • Some of the components in Me were still just barely past beta. No, this does not mean Me was the beta for what eventually became XP, but it does mean that the first time the similar components between Me and XP showed up, they were in Me. The thing is, there were lots of uncertainties about how these new features were going to work on the old OS code, and let's face it—Me was just 98 code with more stuff thrown in. If it worked, then it was good. The trouble was that it didn't always work for everyone.
  • Not enough tools available for the features. Sure, a lot of people will complain of "bloat" around here, but in my opinion, as Inigo Montoya says, "I do not think that word means what you think it means." Me was not bloated, and in fact it didn't have enough interface tools to handle many of the added features. Many of the features were simply tied into the old wizards and walkthroughs. This is what added to the spotty performance.
  • Relied on the DOS subsystem but hid it from the user interface... bad idea. Sure, grandma and aunt Millie don't need to be able to drop to DOS on a reboot to fix something gone wrong that won't let it boot up, but if they take their computer to Bobby Fixit for repair, he's either gonna need to do that or wipe and reinstall. The 9x series of Windows is to blame for the still-prevalent mistaken idea that people should format and reinstall every once in a while to "clean things up." Windows Me repairs weren't really that much more difficult than 98 or 98SE repairs, but for the uninitiated, it probably seemed impossible. (by the way, this is what will be the failing of Linspire, if they don't make it easier to administer properly)
  • Crappy driver management and hardware support. Granted, this was inherited from the rest of the 9x series—Plug n Play could find the hardware just fine, but wouldn't have a clue what to do with it unless you did the same crap you had to do with 95a before it would be recognized. And don't forget to have your Windows CD handy (how many grandmas installed all the cab files on the HDD?)! Oh yeah, remember to reboot before continuing. ;)
  • As XOR pointed out, the networking in Me was notoriously hit-or-miss. I know people who preferred NT4 over Me, and in my opinion, NT4 was a confusing mess all on its own (even when you get to know it). 9x never really excelled at being a network operating system, and Me is no different than its 9x predecessors in this regard.

I'm sure there are more things, but this is the meat and potatoes of it. In a nutshell, it was the inheritance of all of the 9x series problems, mixed with the questionably poor implementation of the newer features, that caused Me to perform poorly for many people. Honestly, the simple fact that, visually, it did things slightly differently than 98SE is probably what gives most of the people who bitch about it ogeda. People hate different, which is why XP's most common rants against it have to do with people treating it like 98 or 2k instead of XP. Still, it is highly arguable that the implementations in Me were not up to the standard that XP's were.

XOR != OR said:
I can say with some authority that it is a huge steaming pile of shit, and if you don't see that, well whoopee doo, and good for you.
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I wouldn't say it was a total pile of shit. I know people who could go for months without rebooting and be fine, keep it installed for two or three years without a reformat, and have never experienced a BSOD with it. These people are rare, of course. Anyhoo, at the very least, Me was the final nail in the coffin for the 9x kernel, which is a Good Thing™. I mean, could you imagine how shitty XP Home would be had it been based off the 9x kernel, while Pro remained the NT one? That would have been a travesty.

We should thank Me for tanking, instead of hating on it so bad.
 
Chaballaman said:
i got flamed here everytime i mentioned the "Windows ME" in this forum..
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=789955
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=788963
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=782549
personally i never had problem with it, it runs fast and stable. i have two similar setups with win xp n win me n one with me seem to run faster overall n in games. why does everybody here hate ME so much?
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You sound just like my friend who bows down to winME and he did till I forced 2k on him.

As far as what every one here has said they are all correct ME is one of the worst OS microsoft has made. And about the only machine that can run windows ME correctly is one that came with it installed from the factory.

Bill gates debuted windows 98 on stage it blue screened on boot then agian later when he tried showing the audience some thing. There was so many bugs in 98 they had to release a service pack they called it 98 Second edition and it finaly ran correctly.

Now 98 had a memory cap of 512. Windows ME takes 2 steps back and can only run 256 meg with out slowing down or getting errors nothing seriously happens in me until you reach 320 meg. Things just get worse from there the highest you can get me to boot on is 512. If you go any higher than 512 the computer will crash on boot if it manages to get into windows you will not be able to even move the mouse before it crashes.

There are many other problems with the 9x line such as they cant address more than 32 gig. 2 gig for 95 32 gig for 98 and ME. Now there is a fundamental flaw with the 9x series os when an application crashed most of the time it would take the whole system with it. This happens simply because the 16bit/32bit os lets applications manage thier own memory spaces so when they crashed they took all the other things in memory with them.

Now lets talk security in the 9x line it is non existant clicking cancel gives you root access and the ability to do any thign you want. It remains this way unless you load a 3rd party security software. As my High School eventualy learned and is now using 2k and xp and is running a 3rd party program to monitor and restrict pc access.
 
Lunas said:
You sound just like my friend who bows down to winME and he did till I forced 2k on him.
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You shouldn't throw stones at the guy, you sound like someone who says Me is crap simply because everyone else does.

Lunas said:
Bill gates debuted windows 98 on stage it blue screened on boot then agian later when he tried showing the audience some thing. There was so many bugs in 98 they had to release a service pack they called it 98 Second edition and it finaly ran correctly.
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Sounds like urban legend kicking in. Do me a favor and show me proof about the 98 debut, and I won't call your claims the biggest line of bullshit around. Also, 98SE never ran "correctly" either—it's still the same shitty OS 98 first edition was.

Lunas said:
Now 98 had a memory cap of 512. Windows ME takes 2 steps back and can only run 256 meg with out slowing down or getting errors nothing seriously happens in me until you reach 320 meg. Things just get worse from there the highest you can get me to boot on is 512. If you go any higher than 512 the computer will crash on boot if it manages to get into windows you will not be able to even move the mouse before it crashes.
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Not true. When addressing the memory, it could only show you 512. The rest you said is bullshit.

Lunas said:
There are many other problems with the 9x line such as they cant address more than 32 gig. 2 gig for 95 32 gig for 98 and ME.
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:rolleyes: More myth mixed with fact.

Lunas said:
Now there is a fundamental flaw with the 9x series os when an application crashed most of the time it would take the whole system with it.
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This is one of the few factual things said in this post (another was the line about coming installf from the manf.)

Lunas said:
This happens simply because the 16bit/32bit os lets applications manage thier own memory spaces so when they crashed they took all the other things in memory with them.
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:rolleyes: Spoken like someone who doesn't understand what a 16- and 32-bit operating system really means, and who isn't aware that 2k/XP are also 32-bit.

That isn't the reason it crashed the whole system. If you want to know, here's a hint as to why newer Windows OSes don't crash: New Technology, colonel. ;)

Lunas said:
Now lets talk security in the 9x line it is non existant clicking cancel gives you root access and the ability to do any thign you want.
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And yet I can guarantee that I could set up a 9x machine where 90% of the people who say this would not be able to do anything but open up notepad.

Lunas said:
It remains this way unless you load a 3rd party security software.
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Read above.


By the way, this is not to say Me is was the new sliced bread or anything. I simply want to point out that basing hate for the OS on myth and conjecture is not indicative of one keeping an informed opinion about the computing world's (short) history. There are plenty of real things wrong with the OS that we don't need to make shit up.
 
I've been running windows 98SE for a good 5 years now with no problems :D. Do I get a cookie? That means NO formats. I don't format often, like most people, unless I need to, and I haven't needed to. It still runs like a charm. Its running on a P3 1.0 ghz with 512 ram, on a 40gb HD (80gb secondary).

Don't worry though, I'm upgrading to XP in about 3 weeks, when I get a new PC.

Sure, 98se works fine, but XP works better. In my PERSONAL experience, which isn't to say that I know everything, 98 SE is probably better than ME, and I would PERSONALLY install 98se before ME any day. Thats just how I feel though.

Sounds like urban legend kicking in. Do me a favor and show me proof about the 98 debut, and I won't call your claims the biggest line of bullshit around. Also, 98SE never ran "correctly" either—it's still the same shitty OS 98 first edition was.
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By the way, I have a video of this on my computer somewhere. Its pretty funny. Bill gates is showing off 98, and he says "Look, we can plug in the scanner here, and windows 98 detects it immediately" bam BSOD. Everyone laughs, and Bill says something like "I guess thats why we haven't released it yet, huh?".

I'll try to host it later and post the link for you.
 
Chaballaman said:
i got flamed here everytime i mentioned the "Windows ME" in this forum..
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=789955
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=788963
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=782549
personally i never had problem with it, it runs fast and stable. i have two similar setups with win xp n win me n one with me seem to run faster overall n in games. why does everybody here hate ME so much?
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I agree, so far I have had nothing but trouble with windows xp and hardware support like xp NOT supporting a generic sound blaster 16. So far windowsME is winning the compatibility and stability race.
 
How old is the generic Sound Blaster 16 that XP is having trouble with? Windows XP seems to like newer systems and hardware.

Also, if you upgrade from an earlier OS to XP, that's trouble too. It's always better to format and install a fresh copy of XP.
 
MScrip said:
How old is the generic Sound Blaster 16 that XP is having trouble with? Windows XP seems to like newer systems and hardware.

Also, if you upgrade from an earlier OS to XP, that's trouble too. It's always better to format and install a fresh copy of XP.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have XP installed on a five-year-old Compaq laptop, running at a screaming 233 MHz and containing all of 192 MB of memory. Everything—the ACPI (battery/power management), sound, I/O devices, screen, video, and everything else was all supported straight from the install, no need for driver CDs or downloading drivers to install.

None of the 9x series is capable of that. Win2k couldn't even do all of that (though it could do most of it). This is why XP is number one at compatibility.
 
Well, I remember when ME came out, in fact, I was running beta's for months before-hand (always love to run the newest stuff :) ). Would have gone to 2k earlier but at the time there were still quite a few DOS based games that I still played, and there weren't any drivers for the $60 network card had just bought. :mad: I also seem to remember it actually running games slower than 9x at first, maybe due to bad drivers, who knows. ME worked for me at the time, but I don't think I could live with it today.
 
GreNME said:
By the way, this is not to say Me is was the new sliced bread or anything. I simply want to point out that basing hate for the OS on myth and conjecture is not indicative of one keeping an informed opinion about the computing world's (short) history. There are plenty of real things wrong with the OS that we don't need to make shit up.
Click to expand...

crap cut to make this shorter

I have experianced the memory problems first hand it was when i built my 1.2ghz tbird I was going to run ME. I had 3 256 meg modules giving me a total of 768 meg of ram. I loaded ME on a Brand new partition and got nothing but errors upon errors. I did a mem test that was good then i remembered some thing about a memory limit on the 9x line. So i took out 1 module and Most of my errors went away like me soon was goign to. Still getting a few errors i reinstalled but to my frustration my pc still crashed alot about every 10-15 minutes. Now I was able to read around a little and found ME had problems with any thign above 320 meg so i pulled out yet another module and all my errors went away. Not very happy having wasted 8 hours trying to get windows ME to work at all i shut my pc down and put the ram back in then i dug out a copy of 2k i then put it on my pc. And was given full ammounts of my memory. BTW i also expermented with 98.

However it was a give and take relation ship I had a Ati tv wonder card and it doesnt work with out dirvers so i was stuck with out it till ati released the 2k drivers. This problem would come up agian when i got a legal copy of xp as the card would cause the system to bsod now instead of the card just not working.


Now onto the whole 16 bit 32 bit kernal thing i couldnt remember how the 9x line did 32 bit i remember that it did real mode 16 bit but i couldnt remeber if the 9x line was able to do real mode 32 bit or if it emulated it. the newer NT kernals emulate 16 bit and runs true 32bit.
 
Sounds like you were experiencing problems due to something other than memory capacity.
 
some people just can't tame the beast that is ME. it works good, it just requires a certain touch.
 
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