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The underapreciated Windows ME

Alabamarebel1861

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2020
Messages
123
Why is it that in this day and age, at a time when you can get any information at the click of a button is there still so much misinformation out there about Windows MEs dependability? Seriosly I see nothing but people craping on this OS and yet I've never had a poor experience with it. Every computer I've ever installed Windows ME on has been reliable and fast. Not to mention the cool new features ME brought us like Movie maker and System Restore. Heres to Windows ME. Truely a hidden gem of an Operating System.
 
The initial releases of Windows ME were buggy enough that it was like Vista--corrected most of the issues later, but by then the reputation had stuck. One of the things that turned many off was that there was no way to exit Windows and drop to real-mode MSDOS. Eventually, there were patches that permitted that, but by then, if you needed Win9x, you stuck with Windows 98SE There was really no overwhelming reason to migrate to ME.

To this day, when you're looking for old drivers, most mention 95, 98 and 98SE, but leave off ME.
 
underappreciated my ass. I remember millennium. IT was windows 95 with patch #1000 applied to it, Ran like crap. Windows 98 (95 with patch #50) ran best. I used 95 since the first release and I saw it get better than worse. ME deserves to be buried. Windows 2000 however was superior to XP in many ways, shame it was short-lived.
 
The reason Windows ME was a dumpster fire is because it was rushed to market, intended to be a stopgap for what eventually turned out to be Windows XP.

Microsoft basically took Windows 98SE, stripped out real mode support and a few other things and added some features from Windows 2000 (system restore) and others from the Windows XP project (movie maker, etc.)

Bill Gates said that 98SE would be the last version of Windows based on the 95 kernel and DOS, but realized that XP wouldn't be ready in time, so ME was born.
 
Yeah, this is some finely-minced nonsense. Did ME's issues get corrected? Yes - but it was far too late for any of it to matter, and this was in the days when Window Update never worked at all, so good luck getting the patches.
 
In the Win9x series, Win98SE was really the best all-around workhorse. It had decent USB support and could take advantage of some Windows XP minidrivers. And you could still boot/shutdown to real-mode DOS. By using a long filename driver (DOSLFN), you can even get long file names to work in real mode. Still a very useful product.
 
The reason Windows ME was a dumpster fire is because it was rushed to market, intended to be a stopgap for what eventually turned out to be Windows XP.

Microsoft basically took Windows 98SE, stripped out real mode support and a few other things and added some features from Windows 2000 (system restore) and others from the Windows XP project (movie maker, etc.)

Bill Gates said that 98SE would be the last version of Windows based on the 95 kernel and DOS, but realized that XP wouldn't be ready in time, so ME was born.
Well, actually, ME was the result of the cancellation of the Neptune project (Windows 2000 Home). The features they added to Win98SE that would then become ME were originally created for Neptune. System Restore for example was *not* taken from Windows 2000 - it did not exist there (talking about the original release; I don't care if a service pack added it later - back-ported from ME). XP was never planned, just like ME.

I like ME as well. Have it running on two or three systems and no issues with it at all. It's also way faster and more modern than 98SE.
 
I had 98SE running as a secondary daily driver well into 2011. It had its issues, but it really was quite solid.

Couldn't agree more. Didn't run it that long but it was solid and reliable enough for a long time. Correct me if I am wrong but didnt microsoft still push updates on it for many years to come also?
 
underappreciated my ass. I remember millennium. IT was windows 95 with patch #1000 applied to it, Ran like crap. Windows 98 (95 with patch #50) ran best. I used 95 since the first release and I saw it get better than worse. ME deserves to be buried. Windows 2000 however was superior to XP in many ways, shame it was short-lived.

Could not dissagree more sir lol. From my experience Windows 95 is literally just a bundle of headaches in software form. Windows 98 is major improvement but still really good at causing headaches. Windows ME however has never given me problems. With how good MEs driver database is and with SysRestore being available ME has become one of my favorite OSes to use. It's fast, dependable and has a lot of features that are only otherwise available on XP+. Honestly behind Windows 2000 (which I agree is like the best Windows OS ever by FAR) Windows ME holds a very special place on my systems.
 
I had 98SE running as a secondary daily driver well into 2011. It had its issues, but it really was quite solid.

Funny you say that cause I actually originally made this post because I'm back to daily driving Windows ME on my work laptop. I was going to just put 2000 on it like I do all my modern computers but I figured since it came with ME it'd probably be happy with it and luckily I was right.
 
Couldn't agree more. Didn't run it that long but it was solid and reliable enough for a long time. Correct me if I am wrong but didnt microsoft still push updates on it for many years to come also?

I'm not sure. When ME was out we were still on Win3.1 and a 386 Packard Bell. Didn't even get to use 95 until around 2010 when I took a computer class at my school.
 
Windows 3.1 & Windows 95 were our fed workplace systems back when. We had PCAnywhere along with Banyan Vines. Our first laptops that actually 'worked' were Gateway's and they came with a mammoth Gateway docking station that was anything but portable. The thing had had built-in floppy and hard drive support along with a detachable keyboard and monitor. It was a kludge to use as it took up most of your desk. Things were evolving fast back in those days and it wasn't long before PCAnywhere and Banyan Vines gave way to the T1 with Outlook. Everything got pretty much standardized with Outlook, and Dell was now the duty PC and laptop.

A word about that laptops that didn't make the cut. We had a purchasing agent at our D.C. HQ that wasn't 'tuned in' or was quite clueless and PC and laptops. This person actually made a business trip to NYC and found a 'broker' who would sell, at an extreme discount if purchased in quantity, 386 color laptops with absolutely no name or markings. We're talking maybe 50 or so units. Most of our division was assembled at a training session in Houston, 1996 or thereabout, and we all had our new no-name laptops. The video failed on these things like somehow a timer was going off. By the time the training session was over, none were working and an 'emergency' purchase was authorized by someone up the food chain. The new units were AST 486's which had a 486/25 tripled and a nice color VGA display. When I retired from the feds in 2007 I still had that AST and it was still in use for various things. XP was the OS for our group back in '07.
 
I'm not sure. When ME was out we were still on Win3.1 and a 386 Packard Bell. Didn't even get to use 95 until around 2010 when I took a computer class at my school.

I take it you are younger and were not using 9X when it was out. Sounds a bit biased then. You have fond experiences using it 10 years ago. Sure I cant contest that, doesn't mean it was any good.... It wasn't. I supported 95/98 in a corporate environment when they were current. I am aware of how flakey the initial release of 95 was. I had it when it was brand new, and was formatting and reloading every 2 weeks (that is not an exageration). ME was bloated and slow and a 8 build. Never seen it used in a corporate environment either. If it wasn't 95/98 it was NT 3.51 or NT 4.0 followed by 2000 than XP. ME was just a footnote, same with versions of windows prior to 3.0.
 
Not tuned in, or tuned in to under the table kickbacks...

We thought about that back then but you didn't want to rattle the HQ staff. This person was kind of like the Swiss Army Knife for the division and had his fingers in everything that had to do with the budget. So, he was able to do the CYA fairly effectively for a while, then reorganizations and politics took over after an IT group was established. When we get together, the oldtimers still talk about those no-name laptops. We always envisioned it as some kind of a back alley deal around the docks in Brooklyn. You know, "psst, over here".
 
I considered the upgrade back in the day but the fact was I had a 98SE disc and a genuine activation key while keys for ME were still worth money and I wasn't about to hit up Kazaa for a disc image and key while on dial-up. ;)
ME did not add anything I needed that was not already available on 98. There was no software ME could run that was not 98 compatible. Same goes for drivers. To me it was an entirely redundant operating system and by the time I was looking to upgrade it was 2005 and Ubuntu was able to hold me over until XP keys started showing up reliably enough that it wasn't worth risking a crack that would get you blackscreened a few months later by WGA.
 
As an MSDN subscriber, WinME came free with the subscription. I used it a couple of times and reverted back to Win98SE. It really was that bad.

I never had very good luck with it either (lots of BSOD). Also, as NeXT pointed up there really was no compelling reason to move to Me as a daily driver OS.
 
I take it you are younger and were not using 9X when it was out. Sounds a bit biased then. You have fond experiences using it 10 years ago. Sure I cant contest that, doesn't mean it was any good.... It wasn't. I supported 95/98 in a corporate environment when they were current. I am aware of how flakey the initial release of 95 was. I had it when it was brand new, and was formatting and reloading every 2 weeks (that is not an exageration). ME was bloated and slow and a 8 build. Never seen it used in a corporate environment either. If it wasn't 95/98 it was NT 3.51 or NT 4.0 followed by 2000 than XP. ME was just a footnote, same with versions of windows prior to 3.0.

Its not that I have fond memories of anything. It's that I still currently use these old OSes everyday. Hell right now my current client is a Windows 2000 system. I'm not looking through some rose tinted lenses or something. I'm using these OSes in a real work environment literally everyday.
 
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