ME, Good or bad?

[NoxPT]

ok. several friends of mine have windows ME and can't seem to figure out why nothing works. they have sought my opinion and when I tell them I think it sux the just look at me like I'm a wierdo so please give me your professional opinions on how good is ME and if bad what are better choices. thanx

 

[nihil]

imo, 98se or win2k would be a better choice. but that's just it, it's all about opinion.

apples vs. oranges
linux vs. windows
mac vs. pc

you get the point. it's all about what works for the end user.

 

[allansaunders]

It may be your opinion, but it's an opinion held by millions. ME sucks, not a little, not even a lot. ME sucks utterly and completely, ME sucks like a circle is round, ME sucks inherently and by definition. ANYTHING is better than ME.
Allan

 

[ProviaFan]

Microsoft added a bunch of unstable bloat to an already unstable OS (Win98) to come up with something 100X worse (WinME). That's why it sucks.

However, what surprises me is that most people who's computers lock up 2 or 3 times per day with Win98 or WinME think that's very normal, and accept it.

If only they could experience Windows 2000 or XP for a bit, so they'd understand what they're missing out on, and get a decent OS - then I'd not be getting nearly as many calls for free tech support.

 

[nihil]

the fact of the matter is that there are so many variables that go into an os "sucking". including hardware compatability. i'm not saying that ME is a good os by any means, but one thing that i know is that when i ran it on my system it was fairly stable with a minimal amount of crashes. but it was not by any means a good os, which is why i recommended win2k or 98se. don't be so quick to jump on ME just because you don't like it.

and just because millions of people think the same thing, does not make them right. most users have no idea what they're doing anyway. hence the ever growing problem of user error equating into a product "sucking".

 

[Sunner]

Win2K is supperior to ME in every aspect cept for 16bit legacy support.

If you can't get Win2K drivers for your hardware, then your hardware sucks

 

[Chooco]

i'm on XP here and i loves it. a few things that XP has which makes it better than ME
-it actually CAN multitask, in ME if you run a game server and un-select the window it is running in, all clients will time out before the map can change........it puts power to the idle process which isn't even asking for power but ignores the game server which is asking for power because it is not selected.
-the 'realtime' priority function works
-XP is way faster than ME
-XP has the NT Services options.....meaning that you can run things in the background without having windows on the bottom, such examples would be an HTTP server, MySQL and several other things
-i can leave XP on for a week without it crashing, the thing that makes me restart my puter is when the router stops working ever saturday and i have to reset the damn thing

 

[Amplify]

Ha! I have the same problem NoxPT.
My friend has ME and can't understand why i have windows 3.1,95,95b,98,98SE,2000,and XP pro and skipped over ME.
Anyway I have him converted, gonna install XP Pro on his system tommorow
Then he will see what he's been missing.

 

[BeeMojo]

From my experience, ME is to win98 what XP is to win2k. I know alot of people hate it, the main difference I saw was very improved plug and play. This is also a big part of XP compaired to 2k. The USB, and the plug an play in ME is very different from win98, and if you have usb devices that like to stuff their own drivers in, it is a sure way to crash ME.

I had a great deal of luck with ME, I crashe 2 times, both times were because of USB drivers. First time was with an HP scanner that stuffed its drivers in, after restoreing, I found that by just plugging in the scanner, it worked with no drivers at all. The second time was a sony USB link to a camera. CRASH. Restore, plug camera in and guess what? showed up as a hard drive.

This same camera crashes several XP machines (dell and gigbyte MB's).

Now if I were to load an OS today, I would only load one, that is XP. The crash resilient features and the restore points have saved many deliberate attempts to crash the OS.

It comes down to this, is your hardware on the compatability list, or does the manufacturer have drivers readily available for the OS?

If so jump into XP, you can turn off the eye candy if you dont like it.

RS

 

[bullion416]

I would have to agree, and say that ME is terrible. I tried it for a while and didn't really have any big problems, but it definately lacks in performance. If anything, it has a mapped drive shut down problem. In other words, half of the time the machine won't be able to shut itself down. I personally have tried most all of the Microsoft OS and currently I have a dual boot set up with Windows 98se and Windows XP Pro. It runs excellent. Obviously, I use Windows 98se solely for games and I use XP for everything else, like music and applications. That seems to be the best way to go. I hope that helps

 

[Buz2b]

The simple fact is that ME is nothing more than 98SE with a little more PNP support and eye-candy/bloatware. It is still the same kernal as 98, which has many, many documented problems. That being said, I ran 98SE for at least a year at a time, every time before having to reload. It was "reasonably stable" most of the time. HOWEVER, it is not even in the same class as XP. Picture 98 working as it should: multi-tasking WITHOUT running out of resources, running for days without having to reboot to regain the same resources, not freezing up half way through a task, etc, etc, etc! Also, with reasonably updated hardware, picture yourself reloading your entire system WITHOUT having to break out a driver disk!!That is XP. Is it perfect; far from it. But it is the best MS effort so far and comes the closest to being a "real" OS than any of their other pathetic attempts have been.

 

[CWoolmer]

Ive only found ME good for games as it has better support for games, although with Mandrake Gaming edition I'm gonan use that for gaming now. Best version of Windows in my opinion is definetly Win 2000 pro, by far the best.

Craig

 

[rip22]

Win Me was ok for me But i would definitely choose Windows 2000 anyday over it.

 

[ray24k]

I had ME for about 6 months and it worked well for me. It does require more hd space and more ram but it was just as stable as win98se was for me. I use XP now and that is running very well for me for about 4 months now.

 

[jcmkk]

Buz2b - your comparison of ME to 98 is exactly the same as XP compared to 2000. If you liked 98 so much better, then maybe you should drop down to win2k and use Microsoft's best OS ever.

 

[Booster]

I'm running ME now and it's the best OS I've ever used! Works faster than 98SE, more reliable (been running it for 6 months and got yet to have a single crash), no problems whatsoever, only compatibility benefits. If you want to run ME stable, you got to follow only one rule - no VIA chipsets!

 

[Chooco]

Originally posted by: ray24k
I had ME for about 6 months.......it was just as stable as win98se was for me.

omg you have got to be joking! my Celeron500 hs Win98SE on it, it was the only computer with internet before December so during the month of November i kept a crash log for how many times it boots saying there is no mouse, how many times it goes to the black screen of death, how often i get "explorer has performed an illegal operation" which means i'm forced to close windows.
during the month of November, it had 43 errors causing me to shut the computer down, keep in mind that i kept this computer off all night so it really crashed 43 times in 30 or so HALF DAYS. just pathetic.

 

[Apatewnas]

Well there's one thing that comes to mind when speaking of WinME... the ah heck of the millenium! Big software houses building enterprize applications on relational databases don't trust it, period. Try win2k instead or xp or win98se

 

[Tiger]

Run away.
Very fast.

 

[nullshark]

At 2CPU, a poll on what the Worst OS was was given and WinME came out with 170 votes, 44 being the next closest (Win95/98).

Worst OS Thread

ME was instantly sluggish when compared to 98 and I didn't want to throught the hassle of tweaking it. Went back to 98 & NT4 'til I got 2K & XP.

 

[killmeplease]

WIN ME is just as good as WIN98. As a matter of fact, it IS WIN98.

Both suck. The only difference is that one has more features that suck equally hard.

 

[Buz2b]

Buz2b - your comparison of ME to 98 is exactly the same as XP compared to 2000. If you liked 98 so much better, then maybe you should drop down to win2k and use Microsoft's best OS ever.

Funny little person!

 

[killmeplease]

Originally posted by: Buz2b
The simple fact is that ME is nothing more than 98SE with a little more PNP support and eye-candy/bloatware. It is still the same kernal as 98, which has many, many documented problems. That being said, I ran 98SE for at least a year at a time, every time before having to reload. It was "reasonably stable" most of the time. HOWEVER, it is not even in the same class as XP. Picture 98 working as it should: multi-tasking WITHOUT running out of resources, running for days without having to reboot to regain the same resources, not freezing up half way through a task, etc, etc, etc! Also, with reasonably updated hardware, picture yourself reloading your entire system WITHOUT having to break out a driver disk!!That is XP. Is it perfect; far from it. But it is the best MS effort so far and comes the closest to being a "real" OS than any of their other pathetic attempts have been.

The preceding has been a paid announcement. The opinions expressed do not neccessarily reflect those of all AnandForum users or those of other sane individuals.

 

[Buz2b]

The preceding has been a paid announcement. The opinions expressed do not neccessarily reflect those of all AnandForum users or those of other sane individuals.

Not sure I understand your point here. You have a problem with what I said? Explain it and/or defend your point. If not, thanks for the quote.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Buz2b

The preceding has been a paid announcement. The opinions expressed do not neccessarily reflect those of all AnandForum users or those of other sane individuals.

Not sure I understand your point here. You have a problem with what I said? Explain it and/or defend your point. If not, thanks for the quote.

It seems like he's probably just a Win2k or Linux or BSD (or maybe Mac?) zealot. Not that there's anything wrong with those, in fact I love Windows 2000 and Linux, but XP does have some advantages to Windows 2000, including driver support and ease of use for end users (my parents know next to nothing about computers, and they find XP to be easier to use than Windows 2000 Pro, if that tells you anything ).
Of course, I realize that I'm going to be flamed very hard for this statement by those who are religiously committed to their OSes, and will attack all others who do not believe the same way that they do; however, that is one thing I like about the internet - free speech.