Author Topic: Windows ME (Read 1680 times)

bloom25 · « **on:** August 10, 2001, 09:22:00 PM »

I had someone ask me about this today and I gave him my opinion. What I was wondering is what the rest of you who have had the "pleasure" to work with it think of it?

I personally think it probably is the worst piece of software Microsoft has ever released.

Given the choice between staying with win98 or "upgrading" to windows ME; I'd say to stick with 98 se. (Or better yet go with Windows 2000 SP 2 or wait for XP in October.)

Tac · « **Reply #1 on:** August 10, 2001, 09:36:00 PM »

Agreed. My box got shipped with Win ME.

Gawd what a piece of crap. Its good ONLY if you are ignorant of windows and its workings. WinME will fix itself and offer easy to use "restore" features to keep your system running. But thats it. Almost all of the "repair" tools of win98 are gone.

Im thinking of putting win 98 on my second (empty) hdd and booting with it and seeing how it handles the system, I've heard ME is horrible at handling memory.. and I can attest to that, I have 512MB on the system with only 1 cpu temp monitoring program and this thing says sys resourced 85% free...WTF? My old win98 in my p2 300 with 128 ram ran firewall program, my DirectCD and digital camera software on the memory at startup and sys resources stayed 92% free.

Animal · « **Reply #2 on:** August 10, 2001, 10:56:00 PM »

Windows ME is a piece of ass.

The only real OS options from MS right now are

Windows 98 SE
Windows 2000 SP2
Windows XP (2505 or higher)

bloom25 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 10, 2001, 11:25:00 PM »

That recovery "feature" in Windows ME is terrible too. It works by saving duplicate copies of files, thus eating harddrive space and slowing your system down. (Windows ME users might want to look in the _Restore folder.

)

The other nice thing about restore is that if a virus corrupts a system file, Windows ME saves a copy of the corrupted file and will restore it if the file is repaired by an antivirus program. That means that you have to turn recovery off and then repair viruses. Then you have to remove the infected files from the _restore folder as well.

AKHog · « **Reply #4 on:** August 11, 2001, 12:18:00 AM »

I have windoz ME now, I know enough about OS's to know ME sucks a big one.

I'm waiting for windows XP, gona get new deskstar HD and Asus latestgreates(if its good) mobo all at the same time. Then my computer will be complete, for about 1 month until 1.3 gig with 256 pc133 isnt enough.

qts · « **Reply #5 on:** August 11, 2001, 05:00:00 AM »

Wipe it and install W2k. I don't expect to be using XP until next year - I'll let others be the guinea pigs - unless it has some must-have feature. And I won't be using it at all unless I can circumvent WPA. Apart from my main machine, I install and reinstall a lot.

rosco- · « **Reply #6 on:** August 11, 2001, 11:49:00 PM »

When I had 98 loaded, on bootup it had a splash screen that said Windows 98, now with ME it says Windows ME instead.

System restore, dont use it. Smart menus...eh who cares? Win ME has better driver support, it sees my modem automaticly where as in 98 I have to install it from the disks that came with it. Again no big deal I notice no difference in day to day use, no fps difference in gameing either way. It doesnt seem to crash more or less than 98. No boot to dos mode, you have to use a start up disk to get in to pure dos mode. This is my only major gripe.

Basicly, I wouldnt recommend anyone go out and pay for it and I wouldnt recomend anyone not use it if they have it.

I havent used 2000 so I cant comment.

Lephturn · « **Reply #7 on:** August 13, 2001, 11:43:00 AM »

Do yourself a big favour, go to Win2k. Since SP2, 2K has been ROCK solid. It's a very good OS. The only downside to Win2k is really that it takes more RAM to run properly. With RAM so stupid cheap these days, that's not really an issue any more.

The only thing I would do before going to 2k is research any weird hardware. Things like game controllers, USB cameras, scanners, toejam like that. Check around about your video card as well. Generally speaking though, most of the hardware compatibility issues with Win2k have been worked out. It has been a long time since Win2k failed me in any way. It even runs old games flawlessly for me.

Oh, one more little anecdote for ya. My wife got a cheap IBM Stinkpad and used it with the pre-installed Win98 for a few months. It would hang, shut down, lock up, and all kinds of nasty little problems. I finally just formatted the thing and installed Win2k from scratch. That same machine is now rock solid and hasn't given my wife a single problem. No matter how badly she abuses it, that little sucker just keeps on chugging.

AKSWulfe · « **Reply #8 on:** August 13, 2001, 01:08:00 PM »

If Microsoft made cars, WindowsME would be a f'in carboard box with windows and wheels drawn on it with a highlighter.
-SW

Eagler · « **Reply #9 on:** August 13, 2001, 02:22:00 PM »

XP is going to have Microsoft Product Activation.... Online registration not just once but everytime you you do a couple of hardware changes...

Can you say Big Brother Gates?

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #10 on:** August 13, 2001, 04:23:00 PM »

There's always someone willing to step up and defend virtually any softare... MAC OS, LINUX, UNIX, NT, Win9x, FreeBSD... whatever.

This seems to be the only OS that nobody likes. I have yet to hear one good review/oppinion/feature/anything in regards to this software.

Wow... Bill finally managed to bring the entire computer using world together to agree on one thing...

WinME sucks the big one.

AKDejaVu

Skuzzy · « **Reply #11 on:** August 15, 2001, 07:44:00 AM »

Win ME was a horrible bandaid which was supposed to allow MS to migrate from 98 to 2K based code in a seamless manner.

Turns out they married the worst features of 2K and 98 together into one piece of software that makes Windoze 3.1 look good again.

I will stick with 98 until 1 year after XP ships. That is generally a good time to move to a new MS release.
Win 2K is not an option for me. I tried it and had many problems with it, but then again, I work in a different environment than most people do.

One of the things that bugs me, as a developer, is what MS did with 98 and later OS's. Programs that access NULL pointers will not crash in 98 and later OS's. MS redirects those memory references to the swap space of the hard drive and gives them a virtual address.
Win2K takes this feature to a new level, where NULL pointers can get virtual memory space in ram and swap space. 98 only allows one instance of a NULL pointer to exist, so the next reference to a new NULL pointer would crash the software and usually the operating system as well.
Win ME attempts to do what 2K does with the NULL pointer references, but fails miserably, sort of getting confused as to whether it should be a virtual ram address or a virtual swap address.

Win 95 did not do this, which would cause a program that attempted to use a NULL pointer to crash, which I consider proper results of badly written code.
I have to keep a 95 system around to test software with due to this.
If there was a way to disable this feature while you were developing code, then these later OS's would find a home here.

I have a fundamental problem with any OS that allows badly written software to run in this manner. So, there ya have it.

AKSWulfe · « **Reply #12 on:** August 15, 2001, 08:32:00 AM »

Just thought of something.. how many of you have seen Tommy Boy?

That part when he's in the factory trying to sell the brake pads to the older guy, but the older guy refuses to buy them because there's no guarantee on the box..

Well the part where Chris Farley says the line "If you want me to take a toejam in a box and mark it guaranteed, I can do that, I have spare time." That reminds me of WindowsME.

-SW

Tac · « **Reply #13 on:** August 15, 2001, 09:28:00 AM »

IBM OS/2 ... gawd I miss that OS.

MrBill · « **Reply #14 on:** August 15, 2001, 11:24:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Tac:
IBM OS/2 ... gawd I miss that OS.

You still use it

unless you do not fly or use instant teller's. Can you imagine the carnage if the major airlines and banks used a M$ offering.