Windows ME

[Glen]

In an effort to fix my old laptop, I purchased Windows ME. Should I put this on my new machine or just stay with good ole Win 98. Any opinions?

[hurrikane]

I'm using Windows YOU and I like it. :D

[MikeDee]

There is some kind of problem with You Bet and Me

I got the following off of the you bet site for when you go to install the CD version of you bet.


"Type this in your dialoge box:
D:\Setup.exe /wipe - With D being your cd drive"

I don't have ME, but figured maybe someday I would need this

Ricks may have some info I think he has ME

[Rick]

No. I skipped ME. Went from 98SE to Win2000Pro.

Ken must have installed it. He wrote about it in Dec 2000 newsletter

http://www.homebased2.com/km/pdf/HTRMonthlyReport-DEC2000.pdf

[chuck]

Rick,

Any problems with 2000? I know the dos shell is kinda hidden. Someone said the only way they could get a dos pgm to run was go to start-run-and enter command. Is this true? Any problems with dos and printing? I am getting a new machine and am debateing 98 vs ME vs 2000.

[Rick]

I have grown to like Win2000. It takes some getting use to. I installed Win2000 over Win98SE so some things were set up automatically. With Win2000 there is an administrative side and a user side. You want to make sure you set yourself up with administrative powers for your user name.

I played around trying different thing getting the HTR programs to work and trying to figure out what worked best. What works for me is having the program set to open in a window. In the window you can't use your mouse to click on things; about all you can do is use it to highlight an area to copy (and just what is visible in window). Within the window you can run the HTR programs using the ENTER and TAB keys.

I normally hit ALT+ENTER to open the window full-screen. In full-screen the mouse works.

I tried setting the properties for HTR programs to full-screen instead of window but it doesn't work the same as the other versions of Windows. You can try it but I don't think you will like it.

I was running a program, Motherboard Monitor, that cause problems for me when trying to run HTR full-screen. I had other programs that had to be reinstalled because they work differently depending which version of windows there installed on. An example is Norton Utilities 2001.

I could go back to Win98SE but I'm not.

[Butch]

Whatever you do, don't put Windows ME on your machine.

Millenium is the last in the line of Microsoft O/S's that uses the 9x 32 bit kernel. It's very buggy, causes numerous issues with various hardware, especially video cards, and bugfixes and updates are very low priority with Microsoft, who is more interested in touting their Windows 2000 and their new Windows XP systems. Nor do the hardware and software manufacturers seem interested in putting out updated drivers for ME users.

If you install Windows ME, expect to see MANY unrecoverable bluescreen errors, which will often require a hard reboot of your system. Most of the PC mags recommend that you skip Windows ME, and I fully agree.

You're better off putting Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) on your machine. The O/S is stable (for Microsoft) and the few problems it has are quickly fixed by making one trip to Windows Update (which is conveniently located in your Start menu). If there's a hardware issue, the manufacturer is very likely to have updated drivers on its web site to take care of whatever problems may be occurring.

My recommendation, for what it's worth, is to stick with Windows 98 SE until Windows XP has been out for about six months to a year (so that Microsoft can fix whatever bugs it might have and the hardware manufacturers can produce drivers for whatever hardware conflicts might be caused), then upgrade to XP once it becomes stable.

Butch

[Bruce]

Butch,
you are so right about Windows ME. I've got so many problems with this computer. My Real Player Video freezes up all the time. Word freezes with some DLL problem. Launch.com stops running automatically and freezes up.
I've been trying to fix these problems but no one seems to know what to do.
Microsoft of course tells me it's not their problem -- go to Dell or Real Player, etc.
Funny how Windows Media seems to work but Real Player has problems....

bruce

[Donnie]

Glen,
Have to echo what the others have said...if possible, avoid ME. I have been hearing a lot of positives about 2000. Haven't had a chance to sit down and play with it, but I just bought a new home machine and am thinking of stripping ME off of it. Tends to hang for no reason...Media Player is iffy, and I don't like it anyway!
Good luck!

[Glen]

Thanks guys for all the tech feedback

[Butch]

There have been some issues regarding 16 bit applications running properly (or at all) in Windows 2000. 16 bit applications include DOS and Windows 3.xx. XP will not have this problem.

If you do decide to remove Millenium from your computer, you are advised to not try to rollback to a previous operating system if you upgraded. The best thing to do is to backup all of your data, fdisk and format your hard drive (in other words start with a clean hard disk), then install Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) fresh.

Butch