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Is ME really that bad?


IceFairyAmy

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Depends on your definition of bad.

Do you want to own your computer, and feel free to use it for the next 40 years until, and go through as many hard drives as you want, and get your money's worth out of it.

Or do you want to rent a worthless hunk of soon-to-be expired piece of over priced scrap metal that will become outdated in year, because of planned obsolescence that will require to buy the same old crap year after year, for the rest of your natural life.

The top is Windows ME.... the bottom scenario is EVERYTHING after Windows ME. (Windows 2000 came out first, so yes, Windows ME was the last real Operating System that you didn't RENT.)

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I was at Best Buy yesterday looking at the Computer section. It looked like something out of Star Trek. Too many Egyptian Hieroglyphs and stupid buttons that I can't tell what they mean. In short, the user interface stunk. I still think the Windows 3.1 Program Manager was the greatest desktop screen ever invented :-)





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> 98SE2ME would be great, if it supported other languages of 98SE, not just English.

If i recall correctly, MDGx provides the 98SE2ME source code as well as a translation guide -- see the page i gave links to in a previous post. Since the 98SE2ME source is just installer code (98SE2ME doesn't provide the actual ME files that are used for updating -- they come from your own ME disk), translating doesn't (potentially) seem like a difficult job. So if you have a ME disc in your language (which i'm assuming you do), you're all set!

> Windows ME was the last real Operating System that you didn't RENT.

Totally in agreement! The main reason i've never seriously moved beyond Win9x. (Tho i have flirted a tinybit with XP... after removing the reg requirement.)

- Doug B.

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Windows ME on launch day on brand new Gateway 2000 or E-Machines computers was not any good. Maybe for some weeks there was a lot of crashing going on. But what happens after I refused to touch the thing? It apparently got better. Some people had this type of experience with Vista also, but the stigma of a bad release never goes away. So Windows ME and Vista will always be bad to most people.

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11 hours ago, DougB said:

If i recall correctly, MDGx provides the 98SE2ME source code as well as a translation guide -- see the page i gave links to in a previous post. Since the 98SE2ME source is just installer code (98SE2ME doesn't provide the actual ME files that are used for updating -- they come from your own ME disk), translating doesn't (potentially) seem like a difficult job. So if you have a ME disc in your language (which i'm assuming you do), you're all set!
 

Not all (un)official patches are available for Polish version of ME currently. I could transplant ME files myself, but what about newer files than on the CD? Wayback Machine can only help so much. People focused on the English version (which I understand), so that's why I'm slightly irritated about that.

Besides, totally off-topic, I do not really like MDGx's writing style about anything, extremely convoluted!

As for the main topic, in the span of just three(!) years, M$ released 5 OS's! (98FE, 98SE, 2000, ME, XP)

No wonder one of them could have failed, they were busy back in the day, there was only so much time for quality assurance, not to mention consulting with the PC component manufacturers and suppliers at the same time, it was crazy, I'd imagine.

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Yes, I agree with DougB

98SE2ME + U98SESP3 are an ultimate combination. If someone is willing to patch the english files for their native language, I would help them build a SP. You wouldn't have to patch every file either, which is a good thing.

Edited by PROBLEMCHYLD
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> Not all (un)official patches are available for Polish
> version of ME currently. I could transplant ME files
> myself, but what about newer files than on the CD?

Hope i'm not misunderstanding you, but i'm feeling a bit of a need to clarify what 98SE2ME is and is not: It's *not* an incremental/on-going updater -- it's a one-time updater. It takes the ME disc and copies over certain files (over 700 actually!) that are ME equivalents/updates of 98SE files. But some ME files do not work correctly in 98SE -- MDGx has tested for compatibility, and the program only copies the ME files that work ok in 98SE.

If you want to further update the files with newer versions, you can of course do that manually. But that's not the purview of 98SE2ME. It only uses files on the original ME disc.

So again, if you have a ME disc in your own language (and of course, a 98SE installation in your own language), it would seem to be not-too-difficult a task to translate 98SE2ME, using the translation guide and source code provided on the 98SE2ME site. Not to forget ProblemChyld's gracious offer of help in the previous post.

> I do not really like MDGx's writing style about
> anything, extremely convoluted!

Yeh, i agree that MDGx's writing style can be kind of disconcertingly verbose. :) Still, we miss his contributions around these parts.

> Yes, I agree with DougB
> 98SE2ME + U98SESP3 are an ultimate combination.

And i agree with ProblemChyld! :) However, i additionally use KernelEx and a few other updates not included in U98SESP3. (For example, the "experimental" VC++ 9 runtime files for 9x.)

- Doug B.

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On 10/25/2017 at 12:43 AM, IceFairyAmy said:

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's good to see there are people that do support this much hated operating system and the 9x line in general :)

I can confirm Windows ME is WAY better with "newer" (2004) hardware than 98SE xD
A short list of problems I encountered only in 98SE that ME did easily

  • Missing cab and dll files that prevented the installation of drivers (having the 98SE did not resolve these issues)
  • Modded wireless broadcom driver caused the 98SE system to slow worse than a turtle with USB speeds of a slug
  • System hangs with a simplest of tasks such as opening an explorer window (caused by driver)
  • USB support had to be implanted via CD drive while ME had the USB ready-to-go

The missing real-mode DOS can be brought back as well! But using DOSbox might be a better choice. When I used the realtime DOS, software did not have sound on my newer hardware!

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  • 1 year later...

System restore I selected disable in file system trouble shooting. PC health (help etcetera) was very good info on hardware configurations for example but I have continued on using a system that this failed to start up on. PCHeath folder has only got helpCtr\temp folder no files on mine, some registry settings were removed.  The version conflict manager (VCM) had a numbering system problem I think, I removed it. I have installed MSInfo from a MSI install disc, (no hardware configuration).  I liked DOS 8 because of the speed improvement. ReactOS files do not complain about DOS 8. SETVER.exe can be used to help correct for MS-DOS version conflicts with programs. My WinME OS system is over 10 years old. I have a VMM32.vxd that is modified date 2005, I do not know where it came from, possibly windows update but may have been after a third party install? ( I have learnt that this is a combined VXD file created at original install date ) If I change back to the original, the system is messaging 4 bit color (BSOD).  ( Just using VM32.vxd from options install cab did not contain the combined VXDs ) I do not know if it is better or worse ( better ) but only creates 1 virtual machine according to system monitor. I have kept the OS alive via 1:1 sector drive copies.

I have run "RamDefrag" to free up as much ram as possible on winXP and on Vista and got the same result, 57MB.

Edited by Goodmaneuver
strikethrough and in brackets
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  • 2 weeks later...

I have found WinMe + MESP2 http://www.mdgx.com/spx/MESP202B8.EXE  (tick the Performance Tweaks option)  to be faster and far more stable than 98SE alone even compared to 98SE + the great U98SESP3. This is when using old hardware (P3-500 with 512MB)  right up to more modern C2D motherboards. (Disabled System Restore and PC Health.)

It was a surprise in so far as the various posts all over the internet with horror stories  about WinME.
What I noticed most was it uses less resources and is much more stable when viewing huge PDFs, playing HD videos etc compared to 98SE. Installs on modern motherboards without freezing compared to 98SE (of course only VGA driver for GFX).

Also this is the only Microsoft OS I have used that has recovered from a BSOD, pressed enter and it took me back to the desktop and worked from there (I wrote down the error message from the BSOD to trace it to an IRQ conflict with two soundcards).

DOS 8's limitations was the only reason I stayed with 98SE on old computers up to 2013. Since then I have used WinMe and a basic batch file to backup and switch (IO.SYS, Command.Com, Msdos.Sys) with 98SE DOS 7.1 version of those files when  I need to boot into DOS.

Edited by ricardrosen
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  • 1 year later...

the only real ''problem'' with ME was the system was leaps and bounds ahead of what hardware most people could afford at the time, and underpowered hardware along with misalligned drivers (from lazy hardware manufacturers simply rebranding 98 drivers instead of coding them properly for windows ME as they were supposed to do) thus leading to stability problems in the initial release which quickly disappeared as more powerful hardware became cheaper.     The same thing happened with vista, with the software being too advanced for the average hardware of the era.  

   THis is why I say, the listed ''bare minimum'' specs for XP are actually a good starting point for a ''basic'' ME build, and the ''bare minimum'' for 8.1 a good starting point fore a barebones vista or 7 build.  

windows ME was definately the last true windows, but all versions up to and including 7 are at least tweakable by the power user to be telemetry-free. all versions after 7 have made this impossible. 

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