Is it recommended using winME?

[sp193]

just wanna change an os for my old computer,i usually just use it to surf the internet,nothin'else.

i heard that winme is much less stable than win98,is it right?actually is there any performace's improvement comparing with 98?thx

Well, Windows ME has it's good features too - faster system bootup (In general), System Restore (OK, this one is questionable), WFP (Again, this may be questionable), supports higher RAM capacities, PnP device detection/driver installation is asynchronous (Doesn't pause your PC to install devices), native USB mass storage device support, better SCANDISK and DEFRAG utilities (They're both faster, and Windows ME's scandisk supports >137GB disks).

On the downside...

My Windows ME machine usually lasted me barely 3 months per format - during which, it'll slowly break down (Programs crashing, active desktop crashing because IE crashes very often, BSODs become rampant as the OS ages... etc). At the end of it's "lifespan" (Before I format), it's usually unbootable (Won't even get to the desktop). Of course, that was back in 2003-2004 - when ME was still a Microsoft-supported OS.

Not to mention that some Windows 95 games CAN'T work properly on Windows ME (E.g. Red Alert for Windows 95).

Neither does it have an accessible "MS-DOS mode" without modification.

I had done a crazy experiment before - to strip ME of IE5.5, WFP and SR.... and it worked MUCH better than 98lite does (Faster bootup too). However, it's still larger in size.

Edited August 25, 2010 by sp193

[jaclaz]

Mind you that it is also possible that the problem is not really in the WinME (I cannot believe I am now saying good things about Windows ME ), there may be historical reasons.

When it came out, there was NO actual *reason* for it.

The fact that it uses some drivers and mechanism of the NT family is a good thing in theory.

But it came out shortly after 2K came out, and shortly before XP.

1. Windows 2K: February 17, 2000
   
2. Windows ME: September 14, 2000
   
3. Windows XP: October 25, 2001
   

The installed base at the time was:

• largely 98
  
• all the rest NT 4.00
  

Anyone using NT 4.00 migrated to 2K, the few using 98 (that were about to be forced to migrate to ME) either went for 2k (few) or, having heard rumours of XP being in development waited a bit and then went for XP.

All the developers coded for either Win9x or for NT, ME being sort of a "hybrid" between the two, with some features (drivers expecially) derived from win2K and most of the actual code derived from 9x, and it is very likely that there was no time for testing adequately apps on this hybrid platform.

To this you add that AFAIK the ONLY (say 90%) users of ME were people who got it as OEM OS pre-installed to a "home" machine they bought, most probably not very expert and prone to use "simple" apps and the picture should be clear.

I presume that a large part of software that sports compatibility with 98, Me, 2K (and XP) does so because of the reasoning:

since it works on 98 AND it works on 2K THEN it works on ME too.

and that was never tested extensively on ME.

I know what I am talking about, I use often when out of office a year 2001 ASUS laptop that came with ME pre-installed.

Obviously first thing I did was to install 2K and use it for work.

But I do have the ME in dual boot, and since I just use it with the most "basic" apps (and not often ) I never had a problem with it.

But I do have experience with other ME equipped PC's, and believe me it was a nightmare, but ultimately the cause of the problems/corruption were due in the majority of cases by senseless installs of crapware by the user or by "highly esteemed" software that was actually NOT compatible with ME.

The overall "good name" of an OS sometimes comes from a simplification of data, if you had done some support in a medium firm and your statistics out of 100 calls were:

• NT 4.00 (3) - ALL solved in less than 5 minutes
  
• Win2K (8) - ALL solved in 20 minutes at the most and without need to re-install
  
• Win98 (28) - ALL solved in 20 minutes at the most and without need to re-install
  
• WinME (61) - of which 25 solved in 20 minutes and 36 in more than 1 hour, needing a re-install from scratch
  

What do you think that the outcome would be?

If you additionally know that the firm had:

• 20 machines with NT 4.00
  
• 60 machines with 2K
  
• 80 machines with Win98
  
• 20 machines with ME
  

it is not a surprise ME has a bad reputation.

Please mind that the above data is COMPLETELY faked , but not very far from what happened at the time....

jaclaz

[Guest]

I hated Win98(FE) when I first upgraded my Win95 machine. Nothing worked right for me and it never grew on me, so I never tried SE. When I had my next machine built, it came with the newly released Me. I had a much better experience with Me than I did with 98FE. I guess I'm in the minority who prefers Me.

I upgraded to XP Home a couple days after it was released, then I received a copy of Pro Corp from work on 2001/11/01. Hated that too for about a year due to immature drivers and very frequent crashes. XP really wasn't bearable until SP1. Since Me never received a service pack from Microsoft, I don't think it really had a chance.

[cyberformer]

It is odd, how simple and supposedly well "proven" programs can screw Me up, in a seemingly more so way-- than 98 or 98se.

Only yesterday I installed a Linksys wireless G usb for my Me machine; the install went quite well. Every time there-after, the machine would freeze just a very short while after boot up---before everything and anything could be used.

After I un-installed those drivers (the right ones) all was back to normal!

There have been a few other "proven" softwares, that I have been forced to un-install (which work perfectly in 98/98se) in order to get things working again; one being a real time consuming deal.

Also, one does seem to have a lot less problems with Me when one has Norton System-Works/Utilities at the ready!

Edited August 25, 2010 by cyberformer

[herbalist]

I hated Win98(FE) when I first upgraded my Win95 machine. Nothing worked right for me and it never grew on me, so I never tried SE. When I had my next machine built, it came with the newly released Me. I had a much better experience with Me than I did with 98FE. I guess I'm in the minority who prefers Me.

For me, it was just the opposite. The first PC I really started to work with and learn the nuts and bolt of was an old HP with 98FE, given to me by a friend who bought a new WinME unit. It was a low power adware infested unit, 64MB RAM and a 366MHZ Celeron. With Norton Internet Security installed, it took over 3 minutes to boot up. Two hours online would exhaust its resources. If I didn't reboot at the first sign of problems, it would crash very shortly afterwards. Fortunately she had the HP recovery disks it came with. After getting rid of Norton and switching to Mozilla, it became a much more usable system. Even with 64MB RAM, it could browse all day. Later on, I obtained a real 98FE CD and learned about 98lite and IEradicator. The more Microsoft software I removed from it, the better system it became. I'm still using this PC, although it's gone thru a lot of changes since then. It's now a multiboot setup with a 5 year old install of 98FE still the default OS. It's worn out 2 floppy drives and 2 CD drives. The CDRW it has now is close to worn out. Still using the original motherboard and 5.1GB hard drive, even though it ran 24/7 for several years. It's proven to be the most durable and reliable system I've had. The WinME unit my friend replaced it with died years ago.

98FE got a bad rap thanks in large part to the underpowered hardware it was usually installed on. FE might run on 64MB of RAM but it does so much better when it has 128MB or more. It's other big problem was Internet Explorer. It doesn't seem to matter which version it is, IE drains 98FE worse than any other software I've used. It's also been 98s biggest vulnerability. Once I IEradicated it, it felt like a completely different PC, much faster and more responsive, almost like I'd upgraded the hardware. IMO, the best way to make 98FE into a fast, stable system is to get rid of as much MS software as possible and replace it with Open Source and quality freeware apps.

[jaclaz]

Once I IEradicated it, ....

.....I got a nicely working, updated, Win95 OSR2 or 2.5....

I'll risk another comparison

Win95 OSR 2.5:Win98FE=XP SP2:Vista SP0

jaclaz

Edited August 26, 2010 by jaclaz

[Guest]

That's how I remember it, jaclaz. Good comparison.

[LoneCrusader]

I'll risk another comparison

Win95 OSR 2.5:Win98FE=XP SP2:Vista SP0

jaclaz

Yes, yes. I remember how much I hated Windows 98 when it was first released. I had been using 95B OSR2, and had never used 95/95A, so when I heard people complain about 95 and say 98 was such an improvement, I was like "you people are crazy." I had a friend who had a 98FE machine and it was constantly crashing just with simple and everyday things that I had no issues with. He called me up for the first time in years a few months back and he was surprised that I wasn't still using 95, haha