I asked this question in another thread but thought that I would start a thread for it.

After running Win ME on this laptop for a couple of months, I am curious to know why ME has such a bad reputation. This laptop was given to me by a friend and I thought that I would immediately find out why people complained about ME, but I haven't had any problems with it. I needed to fax something the other day and installed an old version of QuickLink II made for Win 3.1 that I had on a 3.5" disk and I pretty much assumed that wouldn't work but it is working fine as is everything else.

I am not interested in starting a big flame war here but would like to know what big problems people have had with ME.

Thanks for your responses.

One of the biggest gripes was Microsh..t's try at eliminating DOS

It's simply overpriced window dressing for what is essentially repainted '98. It's bigger and more bloated without really doing anything better.

I've got a machine here with ME on it, for some tasks, mostly out of curiosity, and because I have a copy of ME that came with a computer I picked up. I see NO advantage, that if you go back in time, should have compelled someone to spend good money and upgrade a '98 machine to ME.

My theory is that most of the people that knock it have never actually tried it & are just repeating what they've heard.

I've used it for several years (currently dual boot with XP) without any more problems than I've encountered with any other Microsoft product. Like all versions of Windows, it just has to be properly tweaked.

http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html

I've used Me for several years. In that time I've learned that using the typical install on a single partition is what gives it its bad reputation. I don't have an analyst's training, but I've spent countless hours tweaking and adjusting this OS and learning many of it's quirks. On a single partition it is a VERY inefficient OS, in both power usage and applications. If you add too many programs to it, it usually stumbles all over itself in the form of hang-ups, blue-screens, and increased CPU temperature.

When I install using multiple partitions i.e. Windows on drive C, Programs on drive D, Data & misc storage on drive E, I elliminated most (not all) of the more serious and annoying problems with Me.

One of the remaining problems that I'm working on is figuring out why Me is overly sensitive to certain video cards. Even with the appropriate drivers installed it tends to be more stable using older cards with less impressive abilities. I haven't yet determined whether its really a hardware issue or a power supply issue...but I'm still working on it.

In conclusion, Me CAN be a very good OS, but not straight out of the box. If you're used to running lots of different programs, you've got to use a multiple partition install to get the most out of it. It can be a pain though. Otherwise, one of the NT OS's is probably your best choice.

~ptgeek~

>>One of the biggest gripes was Microsh..t's try at eliminating DOS<<

I understand what you are saying, I prefer having the capabilities of full DOS but in reality I think the vast majority of consumers have no need or desire to mess with DOS.

jam,

Thanks for the tweak site

>>On a single partition it is a VERY inefficient OS, in both power usage and applications. If you add too many programs to it, it usually stumbles all over itself in the form of hang-ups, blue-screens, and increased CPU temperature.<<

partimegeek,

Interesting, have you heard these comments from other ME users also about the inefficient use of a single partition?
I pretty much have left this laptop the way I got it from my friend, other than deleting some programs, hooking it up to my network eliminating AOL, updating directX and sticking bitdefender on it, I haven't really stressed it much.

I will probably format the drive soon, partition it, reinstall ME and buy a decent PCMCIA sound card to replace the onboard sound and partition it since I want to use the laptop for recording music.

"have you heard these comments from other ME users also about the inefficient use of a single partition?"

Most of what I've gotten from other Me users are problems with no solutions. So, I've had to investigate, by trial and error, most of these problems myself. Occasionally, an expert has given some good advice, but most gurus seem not to be too bothered with Me. It's an OS that had it's time briefly, but was abandoned as a serious competitor when 2000 and XP hit the market.

There are several message boards and forums that have discussed the problems inherent with single partition installs. My position is, if your looking for a self-sufficient OS, Me is not it unless you spend time with it and make it what you want it to be. It isn't for the average user.

~ptgeek~

No problems here with ME on a single partition (recovery partition on D). This Windows installation has been going strong since mid 2001 and has seen several hardware upgrades (most recently a new graphics card) without a hiccup. Also have updated BIOS twice since '01.

Great OS, in my opinion, but I have tweaked it a lot since '01.

Best thing I ever did was to stop using IE except for Windows Update.

"Best thing I ever did was to stop using IE except for Windows Update."

I will agree with that. I usually use firefox browser...great program that doesn't hog the system and very secure.

You are the exception rather than the rule with your single partition install. Perhaps you have the right combination of hardware. I've had Me on at least five different machines, all of which have been problematic.

Maintenance is a must for any DOS OS...scandisk for errors and defrag regularly is a must. My guess is that most people don't do the necessary maintenance.

There are better OS's around. I like to keep using it because at this point its free, and I know how to make it work almost as good as XP does out of the box.

~ptgeek~

Thanks for the comments.

>>I will agree with that. I usually use firefox browser...great program that doesn't hog the system and very secure.<<

Firefox is awesome, so is SeaMonkey:

The SeaMonkey Project

>>You are the exception rather than the rule with your single partition install. Perhaps you have the right combination of hardware.<<

This is a Presario that came with ME preinstalled, had to do a full factory restore a few months after I got this (my first) pc because I didn't know how at that time to remove spyware and recover from a browser hijacking (IE). Then I started using Gecko based browsers.

I've replaced the OEM 128MB stick of pc100 RAM with Mushkin pc133 SDRAM and I upped it to 512MB. Then when my cdrw drive wore out, I replaced it with a LiteOn 52x model, then most recently I installed a 128MB Ti4200 to replace the 16MB TNT2 that came OEM. Very pleased with the result. =)

I've also upgraded the modem to a USR 5610B hardware modem which is much faster than the old HSP56 Micromodem that came OEM.

>>I've had Me on at least five different machines, all of which have been problematic.<<

Trev's tweaks are usually very helpful with most ME problems.

How to run Windows ME well V.5

>>Maintenance is a must for any DOS OS...scandisk for errors and defrag regularly is a must. My guess is that most people don't do the necessary maintenance.<<

Maintenence is very important. Especially if you install/uninstall a lot of programs. I always reboot after each whether prompted to or not. A good registry cleaner is also good if you know what you're doing, but it can also cause a lot of headaches if you don't know what you're doing. I use scanreg /fix /opt after scan disk and defrag, not every time, but once in a while.

>>There are better OS's around. I like to keep using it because at this point its free, and I know how to make it work almost as good as XP does out of the box.<<

I dislike XP, my daughter has a Dell pc with XP on it and it is a pain to work with (but very stable), slower to respond than my ME system even with twice as fast a processor as mine has. The updates take forever on dial up (we live where broadband is unavailable except for satellite and I can't afford that) and they are numerous.

My ME installation is very stable also, can't remember the last time I had a lock up or program crash except for the "bad" KB891711 update (uninstalled until MS released a fixed version) which caused problems for most 9x folks, I think.

I've been thinking about trying to find a good deal on Windows 2000 Pro, I've heard that is is a very good OS, also thinking about trying some variety of Linux.

The tweak site is one I wrote a few years ago to support Windows ME.

MS were a bit over optimistic in what they expected ME to achieve, but there is really nothing wrong with it as an operating system if you strip out the stuff which loads at startup and the scheduled items.

I have had very many systems running on ME for years without any serious problems, some without any problems at all, once I set them up without the frills, as indicated on the tweaks site.

So, I am not surprised that you found the system to be OK. Most people do. There has been a lot of prejudice put out about ME, based largely on the prejudice of other people or on lack of knowledge of how to use the system.

XP has almost completely removed the need to tweak the system at all, so it is a better OS for PCs built since its release. It is really the first OS from MS which I would consider to be ready for the ordinary user to use out of the box. Hopefully, all future systems will not only follow it but will improve on it, obviating the need for any knowledge at all in using what should be an unseen part of the computing experience.

But, heck, what a lot of fun will be gone!

I agree with the part about problemns with no apprent fixes available. WindowsMe is the only O/S I really have used the most ,I have a couple of old P2 200MHZ ,one running Windows 95 and the other with Win98 SE ,however those where old givaways ,my main system is this P3 750MHZ that came with a OEM imstall of WinMe ,I have Trevs Tweaks applied ,and this PC performed flawlessly for me untill I tried to update my display driver for the ATI Graphics card I installed .Because the Add/Remove programs would not let me uninstall the originial driver ,a must according to ATI. I tried a "non distructive " over the top reinstall of O/S ,hoping to get back the uninstall ability, that was of course after first trying to reinstall the originial display driver on top of itself to see if I would get a uninstall.log file the eror said was missing. Well ever since this incident ,I have come to not be such a srong supporter on WinMe anymore ,from dublicate files and registry keys ,to missing idex in Window help ,with noone offering anyother fix then a format and reinstall .I dont want to spend 10 hours reinstalling drivers and applications ,possibly losing important documnets I have on PC during the process ,so I limp along with system which alows me to for the most part use the PC for what I most use it for surfing the web ,with my TV Wonder on in a small box (took me two months to get that working again) Iam slowly repairing other errors here and there ! Iam ready for a new much more poswerful system anyway. As for now the biggest problem with my system is the more power hungry games I was playing with no problems will not work now, Medal of Honor Allied Assult ,Nascar Racing 2004, to mention a couple !
Take Care Nick

It's not ME's fault that you performed an over-the-top install (also known as a "dirty install") incorrectly. There are some steps you must perform prior to performing a dirty install (not the best way to install Windows, BTW).

I think if you had followed the steps here beforehand, your dirty install might have gone better.

Re: Trev's tweaks are usually very helpful with most ME problems.
and

How to run Windows ME well.

I've referred to these sites and others quite a bit. There's a ton of helpful stuff on them.

I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect Me was designed for propriatary hardware for the HPs, Dells, and Gateways of the world. I've never owned a prebuilt system, but have built my own clone systems. Many friends of mine who bought hp boxes with Me pre-installed have had few difficulties with them...usually a hard drive crash, or bad modem or soundcard, but nothing with the OS.

One of my computers is a dual-boot system with my Me partitions on one hard drive, and XP home edition on a second hard drive. So, I'm able to compare and contrast the two very frequently. I use an Abit VA-10 mobo with an Athlon 2600+ processor (Barton core) running at a minimum default setting (not overclocked), 512MB of pc2700 ddr (Samsung), an Nvidia Verto 64MB video card, two Maxtor Diamond Max Hard drives (30GB and 60GB), and a Lite-on 52x32x52x burner, powered by a 350w psu.

NONE of the problems that I may experience using the Me drive EVER happen when booted to the XP drive. Even cpu temperature is affected differently. Me sometimes will cause the temp warning beeper on the mobo to go off (the warning temp is set to sound at 72 degrees C in the bios, which is pretty damn warm, while maintaining 52 degrees using XP. If I set the monitor resolution down to 800x600 I can keep the temp more reasonable, but using XP it runs 1024x768 and stays cool.

To be honest, if I could get a handle on this goofy temperature problem, I could probably declare my Me tweaking days officially ended.

But like I've said before, I don't believe Me is as efficient in it's allocation of system power as it needs to be to run moderate to heavy applications. You kinda need to pick and choose which programs you want to run, and leave the rest off of the machine.

~ptgeek~

That is strange.

I've never had any temperature problems that I know of. I don't think my system has any temp monitors, but wouldn't I see crashes or lock ups as symptoms of a temp problem?

Up till I got my new graphics card, the only fans in my case were the cpu fan and power supply fan, but the graphics card I bought has its' own fan.

It gets pretty hot in my house sometimes, computer keeps right on computing when playing graphics intensive games (UTGOTY etc.).

<<I've never had any temperature problems that I know of. I don't think my system has any temp monitors, but wouldn't I see crashes or lock ups as symptoms of a temp problem?>>

I don't have any real-time temp monitors. When my mobo alarm sounds I reboot the system immediately while it's still hot and go into the bios to look at the system health status. I can sit and watch the temp coming down from 70 degrees C to the upper 50s. The XP drive has never set off the alarm, and when I reboot to the bios it's always at 50 to 54 degrees. The only common denominator that I can see here are the OS's.

My video card does not have a fan like yours, that may be a factor. However, a few months ago I tried to install a 128M video card (ATI) that did have a fan and proper Me drivers...the machine lost all stability. It's like a cat...if it doesn't want it you can't make it! After a couple of hours I gave up. It's not worth the effort any more.

I theorize that perhaps a lot of drivers for hardware upgrades are crappy, as if the market doesn't demand much in the way of hardware for Me. All anecdotal evidence that supports Me as a viable OS aside, MSFT's NT based programs are more user friendly than Me could ever be...they're just overpriced! I've spent a lot of time with several Linux distributions. One of my machines is running SuSe 9.0--a little outdated-- but can do everything XP does if you can get over the learning curve.

~ptgeek~

Nick - we're all pretty tired of hearing that (stupid) story - you've posted about in nearly every forum here.

Time to move on - no OS is proof against user error

Maybe you could work on your use of commas

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true

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On a lighter note, I'm sure Microsoft could have fixed or at least worked out a lot more of the inherent bugs in WINME, considering the almost unlimited resources at the company's disposal.

However, when you have an OS aptly named Windows ME (Millenium Edition), you really don't have room for delays or postponements since the general populace for 'political correctness' assumed the year 2000 as the start of the next millennium as opposed to 2001.

It was simply a matter of ready or not here it comes. The other alternative would most likely have involved a name change and a much later launch date minus the targeted millenium fanfare.

Another good site for Windows ME users:

Jack Gulley's Windows ME Fixes