Why does Windows ME suck

Why does everyone say Windows ME sucks so much just asking

cause its popular to say. kinda like "all your base belong to us" people used to hate xp with a passion. but they had to get used to it cause its here to stay. in MEs case people just moved to 2k witch is actualy smoother running than any 9X. and thus ME got a bad name. that about sums it up

Windows 98 "SE" "Suckers Edition"
Windows "ME" Mistake Edition
Windows "NT" Not to Terrible
Windows 2000 ahhhhh! A good OS!
Windows "XP" eXtra Problems

Just my 2cents, I have to work with them all, all day at work!

how much does windows 2000 go for these days and is it anythig like the windows 9x versions, i mean manageably. and another thing all of my other computers use windows me so will i be able to copy files from those computers and put them on the computer with the windows 2000, since they use fat32?

LOL, funny stuff.

Well, Win98SE is basically a serivce packed edition of Win98 1st edition.

WinME was the "Damn, Windows 2000 is out for business use, we need a home OS, lets mess up Win98, add stuff to it, and call it a new OS!"

Win2k is great, i agree.

WinXP (atleast home edtion) is a disabled dumbed down version of Win2k.

XP pro is XP home that isn't as disabled and costs twice as much as XP home.

XP isn't so bad, but I'm still a big Win2k fan.

Win2k can be had in OEM form (must buy with hardware) for 149 bucks.

As for WinMe, you'll get conflicting reports. Some say WinMe was just Win98 with addons, but others say that WinMe was Win98 with more NT coding in it. Not enough to make things nice, but enough to mess things up.

Ask me, and I'm just not sure. In one sense, WinMe has all the drivers loaded in the install, so that makes the CD needed ALOT less when changing network drivers, settings, etc etc.

The interface is also alsmot exactly like Win98...sorta a mix between Win98 and 2k.

But it's still junk. We have a few WinMe machines and Win98SE machines at work...the 98 SE machines are actually a bit more reliabile, in my opinion.

And I've had trouble installing certain things on WinME that worked fine on Win98 SE. My Pinnacle DC10 video editing card is one thing that comes to mine. Wasn't compatible with WinME, so had to get Win98 SE to use it.

Its a good question though...what exactly IS Windows ME?

In one sense it has addons and changes for the better from Windows 98. I like changing network settings alot better b/c of not needing the Windows CD. (Which is a pian when you forgot it on the other side of the office)

But in the same sense, it's still a 9x based OS that is less compatible and seemingly less reliable. And somehow this was progression?

If you ask me, it was Microsoft putting out something to hold people off for XP.

In a sense, I suppose this could be a good analogy:

WinMe = Microsoft's Thoroughbred

Mike

PS yeah, you can copy Fat32 files to Win2k no problem. Infact, you can attach a Fat32 drive to your system while running Win2k on another NTFS drive. It'll pick it up no problem, and transfer files no problem. However, on a network, pulling files off a Fat32 system to NTFS is slower than NTFS to NTFS, but ofcourse, still very possible.

phantom punisher said:

cause its popular to say.

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With some people possibly.

But the reason I beleive WinME sucks is because of it's lack of stability. It was constantly crashing on me when I ran it. And there are many people still having a lot of problems with it. And they can usually be fixed by installing a beter os.

Like XP!!


Yes! XP OWNZ!!!!!

Smizack said:

With some people possibly.

But the reason I beleive WinME sucks is because of it's lack of stability. It was constantly crashing on me when I ran it. And there are many people still having a lot of problems with it. And they can usually be fixed by installing a beter os.

Like XP!!

Click to expand...

so you didnt fix it or learn to run it properly. you just moved to a different os? youve just proved my point. anyhow it certainly isnt as stable as 2k or xp but its on par with 98se. its given some people a lot of trouble but no more so than xp has for some. so thats were ME stands, right in line with the rest of the 9x no better or worse just different

ME is the worst OS ever created

phantom punisher said:

so you didnt fix it or learn to run it properly. you just moved to a different os? youve just proved my point. anyhow it certainly isnt as stable as 2k or xp but its on par with 98se. its given some people a lot of trouble but no more so than xp has for some. so thats were ME stands, right in line with the rest of the 9x no better or worse just different

Click to expand...

um, no.

ME was very unreliable, i used 98se for a few months (it was ok, but i got sick of bluescreens after a few days of uptime).

than i went to ME, and every day when i got home from work, it would have a "program has performed an illegal operation" error, and id lose the protien i was folding.
than 2k came, and it was great. dead stable, and not a resourse hog. but i had the resources and knew that XP did better in games, so i went and got XP.

I havent looked back since. and i know how to use/configure an OS, ME was just not very stable. everyone i know with OEM computers and WinME think that BSOD's are common and always happen to everyone all the time. lol

I came in to ask the same question as Superman!

I don't consider myself as knowing much about op-systems but ME seemed ok, I liked the big blue default screen colour, sort of amusing! And it seemed to run fine. Though I doubt I push my system as hard as some of you guys.

I found I had big probs trying to get my soundblaster drivers to load. The install prog would crash just as it was finishing. Managed to use an update/upgrade feature on the driver disk to finish the instal process, most of the files must have loaded before the numerous BSODs appeared.

I might even try to load the ME update drivers now.... they can't be loaded without a previous version..

But more seriously, I found that Access 2000 files using date/time functions that default to current date/time created on my ME system go belly up when I take them to college, they have Access 2000 on Win95, I get error messages concerning the time / date functions.

I don't see what else could be causing the errors.... I got office 2000 on a student / education discount, I assume that it would be the same version as my college would have? I assume that no matter what form of function is used in my version of Access would work in Access 2000 on another computer....

Hmmm....

It doesn't, if you are willing to spend a lot of time setting it up flawlessly.

XP + 2000 are better simply because there is no underlying DOS kernal, the underlying DOS kernal was phased out in ME (no Shutdown to Real DOS menu is one example) so people would be ready for the loss od MS-DOS mode in XP.

IMO None of the systems were rubbish, its just as time evolves we expect so much more from our systems, and look back and say what a piece of engineering fault and so on, when the truth is back then we would have traded our souls for a piece of that 'engineering fault'.
DOS was superb in its time, and if nothing had evolved still would be, Me was 'ok' in its time as it was preparing for the XP transition, now XP has come along we expect perfection.

Remember a crash usually happens when two or more devices/programs try to use the same piece of memory or the systems kernal, XP stops this as every program has its own 'dedicated' part of XP, (whilst running) (this also being a reason why XP gobbles HDD space) so it rarely crashes, and with no DOS to add to that occasional mishap XP is "almost" (dangerous turf here), 'error' free.


My 2 cents
M_N

Interesting point about Me. My neighbor ran the ATTO HDD test(like HDTach, but the write feature is NOT disabled--at least in the shareware version) while he was running Me.

Such scores you never want to see. I mean, slow like a 386, Mode 2-- and he has a Celly 700 box, 512 Mb PC-133 RAM, and Asus i815 mainboard.

He dumped Me and installed Win2K. Now his scores beat my Duron 1300, with 512 Mb PC-2100 DDR, Asus nForce 220D. Exact same HDD in both boxes, btw.

So, Me continues to underwhelm me.

Malakai said:

um, no.

ME was very unreliable, i used 98se for a few months (it was ok, but i got sick of bluescreens after a few days of uptime).

than i went to ME, and every day when i got home from work, it would have a "program has performed an illegal operation" error, and id lose the protien i was folding.
than 2k came, and it was great. dead stable, and not a resourse hog. but i had the resources and knew that XP did better in games, so i went and got XP.

Click to expand...

so 98 didnt work good for you and nither did ME and then you upgraded to 2k. lol that is what im saying. im not defending ME as the worlds best os but the descussion is on why people say it sucks when in realtiy its no better or worse than 98 when set up properly. please someone come along with some argument as to why ME sucks other than its not as good 2k or xp

there are 2 sides to this story, and I'm not sure which one, if either, is correct. The first is that someone told Bill and the gang that it was impossible to make an OS based on the DOS kernal stable, and Me was their offering to prove that theory wrong. The second is that they wanted to prepare the soon-to-be XP users with a taste of the NT layout and other benefits of the OS. Either way, it made Me a very buggy, unstable OS. On top of that, most of the hardware manufacturers had to spend millions to come up with a driver for Me (and some of them didn't even bother) or a walk-around, or a patch to make their product work with Me...and most of the time it didn't do so well. I went 9 months without my HP scanner when I was on Me, because the walk-around posted on their website didn't work. It would blue-screen while installing drivers that weren't certified...what other choice did I have, there were no certified ones!

I don't know what else to tell you, and I don't know what you are asking, but usually when someone says something sucks, they are comparing it to something that doesn't suck, like 2K and XP.

The reason for instability on WinME is that MS shipped it with a beta version of IE 5.5, even after doin the patches to the explorer, it doesn't remove the beta crap, you actually have to go to add/remove progs, click on the IE 5.5 update you installed, click remove, click on the repair option, reboot your computer, and the IE BSOD's go away, I got this info from a MS beta tester after he biatched to MS.

Jim

takiwa said:

I went 9 months without my HP scanner when I was on Me, because the walk-around posted on their website didn't work. It would blue-screen while installing drivers that weren't certified...what other choice did I have, there were no certified ones!

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that is fixed now? how long ago was this? i tried it maybe 5-6 months ago and i had problems, it ****ed off my mom since it is hers. I installed it on her new Dell she got with WinMe and it didnt work.

Personally I like windows ME , it has been very stable, and very good for me. Sometimes, I can leave my computer on for like a week b4 having to restart. I want to try windows xp, but I bought it, and b4 opening, I went to get drivers for everything, and the I found out windows xp doesnt work with voodoo card anyone know of any beta drivers that would work with XP and a voodoo 3 3000 w/tv out?

i belive i just used the win2k ones for a while but theres some hacked ones to work with xp now
http://www.voodoofiles.com/type.asp?cat_id=1

Windows ME is a worthless piece of crap, i seriously think that Windows 95 is more stable than it. ME was made for gamers whilst Windows 2000 was out. and I have always thought ME was crap even at the time it was released, whilst i liked win95/98 from the first day and still now and would still use it over ME if i had no choice, so your argument is wrong.
And if the only operating out now was DOS, then no one would be using computers.
Now no one has an excuse not to move to Windows XP unless you use Windows 2000.

heh, While I had Win98 and I didn't think of getting the SE, when I went to winMe, it really did better than the 98, but I have used computers with win98se and it worked really nice and stable, Win98 and WinME always gave me problems when trying to run VB for a long period of time in Win98se I haven't encountered this problem. I actually got WinXP b4 2k and tryied to set it up a couple of times, but my modem is incompatible and its a real resource hog, since I moved to Win2k, I have no urge to go XP, except some reall nice cosmetics they are still basicaly the same OS with minor improvements and major PITAs... I do like Windows XP and have nothing against, it, but win2k just works much more stable for me than Win98/ME, while browsing the forums my machine always hanged or BSODed me on both WinME & 98 but on the ME it did it less.. It does seem to be stable if the only thing u do is run F@H, I once had it up for 9.5 days, then I ran Q3A and it just hanged (on Duron, almost dedicated folder), I haven't used the computer for that period of time.
If anyone has to choose betwin any Win9x version or Win2k/XP u should go with the 2k/xp.
If your computer is not upto it, I've heared of Win2k running well even on a Pentium 166MHz!