A few months ago I went through a spell of freeze-ups during start-up. The problem was eventually fixed by replacing the motherboard. However, during my troubleshooting of the freeze-ups, I read several posts and replys that trashed Win ME as the worse operating system MS has ever produced. So I asked the family to purchase me the XP Pro Upgrade software for Christmas since XP Pro got such great reviews. I started researching the XP Pro upgrade and found that my version of Roxio's Easy CD Creator 4.05 will not run on XP and the only solution is to upgrade to CD Creator 5.x at a cost of $80. This means I will now have approximately $280 invested in upgrading to XP Pro. Now I'm wondering if it is worth upgrading from ME. My system seems to be fairly stable right now with minimal problems of freeze ups while web surfing. Would I be better off sticking with ME (possible reformat the harddrive and do a clean install of ME to get rid of all the junk that has accummulated over the last 2 years) or upgrade to XP and purchase the upgrade version of the cd creator software? I have not opened the XP upgrade package so I could return it for a refund. Any thoughts to help the undecided and somewhat cheap computer owner?

A1 chack this page out..
http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html
My puter is cleaned out and me runs better than xp. Had a chance to use xp on several computers and me is alot faster. adrian

A1 as indiacted by your response to my problems with my ME freezing, I guess u were having the same problems. U recommended reformatting the hard drive. How do you do that? Is it complicated to do? I am not that familiar with computers. Thanks.

I ran win me from when it first came out untill a few months ago when i went to win2k.
I thought win me was a bit buggy and nothing to get excited about. I like win2k but am going to xp pro. I would suggest if you are going to update then I would only go to win xp - not win xp pro. You only need pro if you want the featues of win2k. The pro version is more money. Here is a good link that compares them.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

oj12345

Go to the link provided in reponse 1 (http://www.burzurq.com). It spells out reformatting your harddrive for ME pretty good. I have reformatted a computer that had Win 98 on it a couple of times and it was easy. Just time comsuming reloading and upgrading all the software you want. Just backup your personal files. I have a cd writer so it's simple to backup my files.

First off IMO windows ME is the worst O/S ever made by M$.

I would rather run windows 95a over ME.

It crashes way to often.

You may want to check into why your PC is freezing and acting up before doing any upgard of a O/S. Most freezing propblems are caused by hardware issues. Pos... bad RAM or bad sectors on the hard drive, even a overheating CPU/Video card will cause your PC to freeze. Some are caused by software problems such as corrupt files from improper shutdowns.

I would recomend testing your hardware first. If there is a hardware problem then no matter how many times you reinstall windows the probelm will return.

My ME has never frozen on me in the two years that I have been using it nearly every day, and sometimes for 24 to 48 hour periods non-stop. I suppose it depends on how many people get freezes with it. Some people get one problem, and some people get another problem. It might be because I had cable from the start. Maybe freezes are related to internet speed at 56 kbs? I don't think there is much point in upgrading to XP unless I was going to be doing things on the internet or with word processors that cannot be done with ME, so I don't know of any advantage in that respect.

WindowsME does not freeze up or crash when installed on a system that is made of modern, adequete components. You can't run ME on a system that went grew up with 95.

I've had WinMe since Feb. 2001 and the only problems I've had with it were created by the person at the keyboard ( myself ).
If you follow standard maintenance procedures ( delete temp files,use disk cleanup, scandisk, defrag and generally keep your HDD clear of spyware ) you will not have a serious issue with any OS.
So many pc users open e-mail attachments when we all know that we shouldn't. ( curious )? Don't be.
Keep your antivirus program and defenitions up to date. Install a firewall. Run Spybot Search & Destroy
Just my 2 cents worth.

If Win ME is working OK for you (and you say it is at present), what would you get from upgrading except more expense, compatibility issues and a "cutesy" GUI?

O come on...Most upgrades result in nothing benificial. Most upgrades are the result of a desire to just screw around with your pc. But WinME diffinately offers much improvement over 95 or 98.

Thanks for all the replys. I'm starting to think that I'm better off staying with ME. I went to burzurq.com this afternoon and did most of things list in the "How to run Windows ME well" section. See what happens with the frequence of freeze ups.
Just to clarify a few items regarding my system. I purchased the computer from gateway back in March, 2001. It came preloaded with ME. So my system is an ME virgin. The system has also known only cable internet access (roadrunner). I have installed a network to connect an older computer to the internet. I don't share a printer on the network which I hear can cause problems. My boys have started getting into more internet interactive games (Counter Strike)which my wife thinks is when all the freeze ups started. However, she doesn't like them playing the game in the first place due to the . I'll have to admit I was curious about upgrading to XP until the CD Creator conflict was going to cost me an extra $80 bucks to resolve. Well, I think I will take the XP Pro Upgrade back to the store and get my two hundred dollars back. Thanks to everyone.

Take back the $200 Xp upgrade and get a $100 OEM copy of Xp Pro. Then you can justify upgrading the burn software.. Also keep in mind that XP has a built in burn app that lets you burn data and audio cd's.

If your system is freezing after games are played you might look into better cooling for that AMD chip. Get one of those big honkin cpu fans.

About windows me being buggy.. no more than any other OS. I leave it running for weeks without restarting. The problems people have are #1. Off the shelf pc's like HP compaq dell gateway etc and there fudged up distro of the OS & buggy partner ware. #2. Installing a million programs off the net they dont need or use. #3. Infected with spyware or virus. #4. No maintenance whatsoever.. Deleting software folders instead of using the uninstaller. #5. Hardware problems.

I have a dual boot system running ME and XP Pro.
Neither crash too often but Me crashes less.

Nuff said....

Jimi_l

By using MSCONFIG to eliminate un-needed apps from loading at startup (user resources at 94% free after bootup) following most of the advice in Trevs , how to make Me run well and the use of Norton Utilities , I cannot remember the last time I've recieved an error notice,or had the BSOD or a system freeze up . I also think running Windows Me with 256MB RAM opposed to the 128 my system came with helped ! Good Luck ,Nick

I bought an e-machine loaded with WinME and 64megs RAM.I started using it with a dialup modem and had occasional freeze ups. Since I have upgraded to 256 megs RAM and gone Cable Internet and found that the freeze ups are now few and far between. ME works fine for me. I want to know how to get rid of the annoying Kernel32.DLL, and the PGSDL.DLL errors. That's really the only problems I'm having at the present time.Also e-machine isn't as bad as what you may have heard.

I thought this might start a major debate as soon as I saw the subject title.

With Trev's link in response 1, ME is fine, never crashes, and I solely use it for internet access these days but used to use it for everything. Now I run Win2000 on a separate drive as a dual boot, and run everything else from there. This allows me to make sure if I get some nasty infection from the internet to make sure my secure Win2000 can't be infected or corrupted since WinME can't see the NTFS partition Win2000 sits on.

Some people have been lucky with ME and some have been plain unlucky - every pc is different and it all depends on what else you have running on it. Yes upgrades do need to be thought out carefully to make sure everything you already have will work ok with the upgrade, so the best answer is to install a second operating system (you mentioned XP as your choice) and gradually migrate your software over at your leisure.

At least that way you will still have a working WinME and a working new operating system. Both Win2000 and XP will setup dual boot menus automatically if installed on a different partition than ME.

Hope this (yet another opinion) helps,

Mark

Thought for the day:

Remember, 99% of all computer problems originate at the interface between the keyboard and the chair.