I am still running w95 and am thinking of upgrading. I have major system problems with lots of things crashing. (to many installs/uninstalls) My question...
SHOULD I GO TO me OR JUST REINSTALL 95. Oh I also want to install Linux, a boot manager, and 2 copies of Windows (Wife thinks i mess windows up all the time so I will just give her her on copy on a seperate partition.) Anyway I just wanted to get others opinions before I head to the store.
Thanx. Dad

I like ME, haven't had many issues, I keep track of this forum and kind of watch what I can and cannot install, for instance, in one post, they said they were having problems with acrobat reader 4.05, but others said version 4.0 worked fine, thats what I installed and had no problems, also recieved good advice on Norton anti-virus......Yeah I would say if you are running win95, to upgrade.....just watch this forum for advice...

You DON'T sound like the type of person who could live w/ abandoning real-mode DOS...especially w/ multiple OS's on same 'puter.

I also recommend against ME because of the bloat; and because it's been winstoned as the slowest Win9x ever released. Then there's the version X.0 syndrome of any new M$ OS release. ME's got it in spades.

Only thing I can see recommending ME is removal of the former TCP/IP limit of 6 at-hand connections.

Or maybe you're one of those folx that assumes that M$' latest is their greatest....and ya just GOTTA get it in/OUT of your system. But you sound like you're above that.

To be sure, ALL Win9x's get "tired" after so many months of installs/uninstalls. But notable diferences exist between other 9x's:

1. Win95B (OSR2, OSR2.1) is the fastest and most stable (IMHO) of all the W9x's. It included FAT32 and was the last 9x that DIDN'T force a franticly "integrated" IE onto your system. It will want some patching (no big deal) to bring it up to date. Only notable downsides to this older (and trustier) OS is somewhat more limited USB support that its 98 successors. Oh, you'll likely "want" to download the IE 5.1 to support certain swares.

2. Win98 (original) forces IE4 (YECH !!) onto your system. It's a notch behind 95B on stability and bloat but also introduced a
little more system control/cfging. You'll want to update the IE to 5.1 (avoid 5.5).

3. Win98 SE starts w/ IE5 and throws in Internet Connection Sharing. It's otherwise damn near the same as original 98.

Good Luck !!!

Thanks, gary and Moiety,
Nice to see two different viewpoints. Moiety brings up points that I hadnt thought of ie, real-mode dos. I usually push the window on configuations, I want things to work MY way so staying with stability in an OS may be most important. Thanks again. DAD

Judgeing from the majority of the post who have upgraded to Me, I have decided to stay with Win98 which has worked flawlessly for over a year now for me. I read a post where a person said his computer was working great with Win98 until he upgraded to Me and he could not get anything to work. I'm not wasting my money.

Yeh and I cannot work properly with a computer without some version of msdos. Got to many programs. Post I've read, people with dos software were having problems getting it to function properly with Me. Have read Winme users telling people to get rid of there dos programs, stay with the latest etc, upgrade, and they will have no problems. A bunch of nonsense. What a waste Microsoft. Everytime they release a new OS we have to get rid of all old software because it will not function with there new OS, which causes us to have to go out and by more software to go with the new OS. Man Bill,you guys really no how to get ignorant peoples cash.