What's so bad about ME?

[JellyHead]

Everyone always says that one should never have a computer with Windows ME as operating system. I have that myself, but since I'm such a newbie when it comes to computers, I don't know what's so bad about it. I'm honestly just curious. I've heard it has a lot of bugs and so on, but I'm sure some of you guys know these things better than me, explain the negative sides of having ME. (and the positive, if there is anything positive about it, I'm starting to doubt it hardly =P) thanx =P

[killedbyc5cg4l]

Hundreds of small reasons... my favorite reason to hate it:

Memory Management rating on a scale from 1 - 10 = -99999999999

Basically it runs slow as the other word for poo. It uses too much memory, and you are always getting these insufficient memory boxes that pop up that prevent you from using your programs. Just go download windows XP and call microsoft and tell them you lost your key... that's what i did :rolleyes: .

Also... windows ME was a testing phase for Microsoft before the NT line of OS's came out. So think of ME as a beta OS. That's why it sucks, and Microsoft shouldn't have sold it, but who cares, they could sell anything with silicon in it right?

P.S. hmmm barbeque silicon chips? maybe Microsoft will get into the food industry!?

[JellyHead]

hehehe.. okay thanx. I've actually been thinking about getting XP instead (ME was included when I bought the computer for 3½ years ago).. I guess all of the reasons to hate ME are relevant, I have to say that I've noticed a few annoying things when using my computer.. =P anyway, thanx 4 ur time!

[killedbyc5cg4l]

Also, I don't know if you have ever tried using profiles with ME, but I did that once when we had a family computer with ME on it. I had two profiles: 1 for my mom and 1 for me. It totally screwed my whole OS up. So if you want to have a multiuser capable OS use something other than ME too. (Could have just been a special case for me though, I mean there has to be something that could mess up in millions and billions of lines of code.)

[JellyHead]

yeah, there are two profiles on this computer too... what happened with yours? this should interest me, it may well be I'm there right now.

[Puckdropper]

Windows ME seems to do well the way my Grandma runs it. To conserve power, she turns the computer on and off. That means it reboots often...

ME seems to be very good for very specific hardware, and junk on all the rest.

[basementcoder]

10 bucks says you can probably do that in XP.

[alc6379]

I'm sorry, Windows ME was an abhorration that never should have been created.

The only complaints I have about it aren't that tangible. For one thing, how is it that you can reinstall it, and it can crash before installing ANYTHING? I mean ANYTHING-- no drivers, nothing. That's the mark of a crappy OS when there's no hardware failure.

Second: Why couldn't they have just improved 98-- it was FINE for what it was! I think all they were trying to do was milk another nickel and dime from the 9x codebase. They added a 2000-ish icon set, and prettyed things up a little, just to make it look more "updated for the new millenium". Any system that can run ME will run 98, if not better.

Also, inexplicably, 98 drivers don't often work, and a lot of times there aren't any ME-native drivers for certain devices. This is odd, because from what I was told, there weren't supposed to have been any major changes from the way 98 and ME handles device drivers.

It's SLOW. That newly added GUI overhead makes your system a little slower. I've seen a clean reinstalled ME system's boot time improve more than 1 minute by installing 98 on it.

...All this, and the fact that it was built upon a somewhat unstable codebase to begin with. The 9x series of Windows OS could barf for no good reason sometimes, and it wasn't oriented at all towards security, making it SUPER easy to write viruses and spyware hacks. It didn't help any that the same registry/browser type architecture was built into XP, making a lot of spyware insertion techniques still valid.

There are a couple of things that I did like about ME, as compared with 2000 and 98. Up from 2000, they decided to reinclude MSCONFIG, which was absent in 2000. (you had to install it yourself) Included from 2000 was SFP (system file protection), a limited scheme for protecting certain system files from being overwritten, and it was the first unveiling of System Restore, which went one step further towards restoring your registry and saving your OS.

of course, System Restore was not without its faults-- without a patch provided by Microsoft, System Restore in ME was unusable after Sept 9, 2001!

[Zachery]

ME was a hybrid of 2000 and 98 that failed horridly.

There were thousand apon thousand of small errors that could serriously messup your system...

[hexstar]

Everyone always says that one should never have a computer with Windows ME as operating system. I have that myself, but since I'm such a newbie when it comes to computers, I don't know what's so bad about it. I'm honestly just curious. I've heard it has a lot of bugs and so on, but I'm sure some of you guys know these things better than me, explain the negative sides of having ME. (and the positive, if there is anything positive about it, I'm starting to doubt it hardly =P) thanx =P

hmm well lets see...XD...first off it can't run without a reboot once a day...second, BSODs are quite frequent and third, it crashes every chance it has, take my word, get XP Pro

[The Dude]

I know several people that run ME and they have NO ISSUES at all on it.....

I suppose it is the same as Vista in a way (Depends on what you try to run on it)

Isnt Vista just an upgrade of ME anyway??

[jbennet]

windows ME was a testing phase for Microsoft before the NT line of OS's came out

no it wasnt. NT 3.x came out in like 1994/4 andf Nt4 (the one that launched it into the spotlight) came out in 1996, followed by windows 2000 (which is NOT ME!!!!)

[The Dude]

Thank you :)

I thought i heard somewhere that vista was based on ME i dunno.........

[jbennet]

its bad as ME is DOS baded

DOS = Old technology

Dos -> Old windows 1.x - 3.x -> 9x -> ME

NT = New Technology

NT3.x -> NT4 "Windows NT" -> NT5 (windows 2000) -> NT 5.1 (Xp) -> NT 5.2 (windows 2003) -> NT6 (windows vista)

ME was already outdated when they made it. Only reason it got released is because the home version of 2000 wasnt ready yet (this soon became xp home, which was released under a year later)

ME was just a stopgap. Dont listen to what they tell you , ME is basically windows 98+, it has nothing to do with windows 2000 - totally different O/S

DOS is dead. NT is now dominant.

[Zappaboss]

WinME is a step beyond Win98SE. I ran WinMe since its been out and have never had to reinstall or had a virus. Couple missing dll's along the way but thats about it. I tortured that computer running multiple programs at once. I used AVG Free as a virus prog and used multiple registry and adaware programs. I use Vista now and kinda miss ME-It was a great OS.

[The Dude]

Nice to see you posting!!

WinME was based on 98se right? (98se is awesome)

I didnt ever run ME but ill take your word for it :)

[Zappaboss]

Hey DuDe good to see your on here. I'm a reader, I can spend hours here at Daniweb and read all kinds of problems people have. And learn from alot from the responses. I will now start to participate as I should.
JBennet in a couple replies above counterdicts himself when he states that Vista is Old Technology DOS based

its bad as ME is DOS baded

DOS = Old technology

Dos -> Old windows 1.x - 3.x -> 9x -> ME

Then he goes on to say
DOS is dead. NT is now dominant.
and finishes with
NT = New Technology

NT3.x -> NT4 "Windows NT" -> NT5 (windows 2000) -> NT 5.1 (Xp) -> NT 5.2 (windows 2003) -> NT6 (windows vista)

Now, I'm not here to start any wars but I say "To each their own". Kinda like I prefer to drive an Astro van and maybe you like a Cadillac. I really bummed out when I had to let Win95 go for Win98 and then I really bitched when I had to go to ME {I tested systems for a builder-repairer who gave me a system provided I use the operating system that he installed. A good way to see the over the time problems that arise from the user.} ME had a whole lotta drivers that came with it. A bit more advanced than 98. Less crashes, but of course there were crashes bsod's. All OS's crash for a lot of different reasons-like when you install a poorly written prog or something not compatible with your system [all thos progs ya ripped from Morpheus that weren't for ME and were for xp]. I ran ME for years, purchased the system and moved on. That old 333mhz died when the motherboard finally bit it. I bought an Emachine that a year old and came with Vista Basic. I hated it at first, with the built in firewall and User Account Controls, built in Windows Defender spyware malware program. Like anything else you have to do some research-do some tweaking-make the OS do what you want IT to do. In no way is it ANYTHING like the ME operating system and NOTHING like WinXP. Its a whole new animal. Just like when XP came out people said "WMA restrictions" and "Bill Gates is spying on me" and a whole bunch of crap that after the user understood the system found to be quite false. What I think MS is aiming at with Vista is an operating system that comes with built in protection for tthe user that is compatible with the system. Yes its MS's malware adware protection [updates] and their firewall [updated] but its turn key. You don't have to stay with their program, you can disable it and go get your own. You just add your favorite virus protection [AVG for me] and off you go. Vista takes some getting use to for sure. Windows 7 is slated to be released in 2010 and you can bet Vista is the ME of Win7. That should of tangled a few minds out there.
GETTING BACK TO THE TOPIC "Whats so wrong with WinME"--answer--NOTHING :icon_lol: