Comments on: Windows ME: Worst Operating System Ever!

By: Brandan

Brandan — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:25:54 +0000

All Windows Versions suck I think microsoft should give up, Linux , Ubuntu , Kubuntu , EDUBuntu ,and the other OS I cannot remember are going to take my market mostly Mac and ubuntu for the unsmart people that need a simple os.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:10:54 +0000

Windows ME is a piece of junk plain and simple. It was never designed to be a mainstream OS. It was released as a “test” before releasing XP to see if people would be willing to accept an OS without DOS. Problem being that it was based on the Windows 9x code which was based on DOS. That’s why it was buggy, that’s why it ran horrible. That’s why you could still buy Win98 the entire time ME was on the shelf. When Microsoft saw what a failure ME was, they added some minor dos commands to XP’s shell that was based on the Windows 2000 basecode. Why do you think ME was only out for a year before XP came out? Do you think Microsoft wrote, compiled and released it in less than a year because of ME complaints? Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. As far as running on “name brand” pc’s. Do you think Dell or HP/Compaq actually build every part that goes in their machine? They decide to make a computer, so then they send out a bid to manufactuers of pc parts and the lowest bidder gets put in your great and wonderful machine, so you paid double for a box filled with cheaper parts. The high end machines are ones that people who do the research and individually pick out their parts so they know they have quality. There are many people out there that “think” they know how to work on pc’s, the only way they know how to fix something is “format”. As for more sevice calls with XP vs ME, duh, shortly before XP came out, the royalty fees on memory dropped significantly and the cost of parts lowered, the cost of pc’s lowered and as we all know, new pc’s are installed with Microsoft’s latest and greatest piece of junk, so all these people got Windows XP. More people had Windows 98 and Windows XP, in comparison very few systems had ME and most of which downgraded because of instability issues, but since more people have XP than ME what do you think you’ll get more calls on? XP PRO which I have to admit, is about the most stable homebased operating system that MICROSOFT has put out. Compared to all the others, it has the least amount of compatibility problems. It crashes, has weird unexplained issues, and is nowhere near perfect, but in the arguement of is it better than ME, then definitly. Oh and Mr. RUNS faster than XP, how do you figure? Boot faster? what proc, how much ram and type of hard drive you running on each box? XP requires a lot of ram before you really start seeing how fast and responsive it is and a lot of “brand name” pc’s starved it. But still applications respond better under XP vs ME try running a benchmark on duplicate pc’s and check the results. The point being, XP pro is better than vista because it’s not annoying and isn’t as bad as a resource hog. I had vista running on a 2.7 ghz machine with 1 ghz ram and it used 42% of my processor and 53% of my ram sitting Idle on the desktop. Look at the specs on programs in the store if you don’t believe me, requirements will say (Requires 1 ghz ram for XP, 2 ghz for Vista. REDICULOUS! In short, XP is better than ME for reasons stated above but these come from my research and experiences.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:58:43 +0000

Windows ME is my favorite OS. I’ve used it for seven years and it runs flawless whether I’m using Word, or the entire Office, or big programs such as AutoCAD or Solidwords or even Flight Simulator or Train Simulator.
I’ve used ALL of the Windows OS at one point or another on many different machines. My most-hated are; Windows NT3.51, Windows98FE, WindowsXP. I do computer fix-its and they’re all with XP. It has a habit of creating thousands of temp files all over the drive! ME never did that.
My experience with ME is 1/10th the problems with it as XP, and 1/50th the updates.
WindowsME starts faster AND RUNS faster than XP. When I go on a service call, it takes about an extra minute to start the computer than if it was running XP.
The only problem with WindowsME is Microsoft gave up on it too soon, forced everyone into buying XP, which only now a few of us are finding out whata piece XP is.

By: The Doctor

The Doctor — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:30:11 +0000

Just because you couldn’t make it work, doesn’t mean that ME was a bad OS. Anyone can use XP, it takes a real geek to run ME.

By: wade

wade — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:05:13 +0000

im using me also and its the best to me. used to have xp 2years ago and i cant say i missed it.me does crash sometimes,but my xp did to and when it crashed it gave the bluescreen after startup and in safe to so you was screwed.me is by far greater to me than xp.
2.6ghz celeron
767mb ram
500gb
windows me

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:01:38 +0000

I’ve used ME for years and never had a problem with it. (heck Im writing this from an ME machine…)

I believe however that ME works best on ‘brand name’ PC’s for which it seems it was designed for since OEM’s were getting complaints about the pre-installed system which seemed rather old at the time – Win 98.

Almost everyone I know who has good experiences with ME has a brand name computer with no ‘upgrades’ except for maybe RAM.

Everyone I know who has bad experiences with ME has a clone PC with random bits and pieces thrown together.

So yeah – if you have a brand name PC, unaltered except for RAM in my experience it runs well on those.

By: Billy

Billy — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:56:20 +0000

Right, Windows ME isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but it’s not much better either! It’s a medeoka system, with good & bad points. But isn’t that with every OS? It was good at the time, but now its obsolete, with wonders like XP & Vista around. In 2010, you’ll all be slagging XP into the ground, because Windows 7 will be released. Just accept the operating system for what it is, not for what you hear of it. :)

By: carl

carl — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:15:00 +0000

you come here asking for help?

why don’t you call microsoft?

By: ken

ken — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:34:52 +0000

Windows Me is my favorite OS. It has the quickest startup and does not hog memory. My main computer uses Me with only 128 MB RAM, and it is still running strong after 6 years. Plus Windows Me doesn’t treat you like a child like Windows XP. I compare Windows XP to an overprotective mother, and Me is the uncaring father. For an operating system, I would much rather be in control, than be treated like a child. Even the Start Button looks childish on XP.

By: ken

ken — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:34:52 +0000

By: eddy currents

eddy currents — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:56:37 +0000

Nah, the worst was MS-DOS, because its legacy of crappiness endures today.

Remember Gates didn’t write MS-DOS, he bought it. He sold a nonexistent OS to IBM and then had to run out and buy something — do you think he wanted to pay for the best after he already made the sale? There were indeed better operating systems out at the time: I knew a computing science prof who wrote an OS that was smaller, faster, and easier to use than MS-DOS. Several companies wrote better versions of Windows 3.1 when it came out. And competing PCs like Macs and Amigas had much better OS’s.

And remember when Gates said “no one will need more than 640k of RAM”? They hard-coded a 1 MB memory barrier was a millstone around every version of Windows until Windows NT and XP, and actually beyond because old software was still written with that barrier in mind.

Plus, old 8-bit code from MS-DOS was retained into Windows 95 and beyond for compatibility reasons. Notice how multitasking grinds to a halt whenever you want to access a filesystem, whether disk or network, even with Windows XP. I think that old 8-bit crap is still there.

Don’t even get me started on multitasking — Gates said “you can’t multitask with less than 1 MB of memory” when Amiga was happily doing it with 256 MB. And Amigas still did it better than Windows XP does now.

In every industry, the best technology never wins. Sad but true…

By: David Duke

David Duke — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 06:25:26 +0000

I’m typing this on my olllld P3 500 Mhz/192 MB Ram and Windows ME. I’ve used 3 pcs (all hand me downs) with ME preinstalled. My first experience was back in 2001 or so when I got my first two pcs and was running 98.

MS was threatening to end support for 98 “very soon” (just like they said they were coming out with Longhorn/Vista “very soon”.) A MS zombie Newb at the time (not anymore) I panicked. What am I gonna upgrade too? Win 2 K was too heavy on the ram ( ram was more expensive back then somewhat) . I couldn’t justify upgrading it. My friend who gave me my first two pcs had a ME upgrade disk (supposedly the worst way to install it). He had used ME too and had no problems with it. I used it too, but then found out the MS upgrade drop support deadline for 98 had gotten extended a few years therefore completely wasting my time.

I don’t recall it being much worse or better then 98. I do believe it was somewhat slower, it does have heavier hardware requirments of course.

Since then, I’ve had three more ME machines. My main machine now is an ME machine. It came with ME preinstalled and I just never bothered changing it because it hasn’t given me that many headaches.

I’ve owned over a dozen pcs since my first and I’ve run 2000, 98 , and XP. The ME machines I’ve had are no better or worse then my experiences with any of the other Windows. IMO and experience, it is a typical Windows OS. Stunningly average.

Then again, I’ve probably been on the lucky side. ME has a horrendous rep and reps don’t just happen. I believe that all these people have had more bad experiences with ME then any other MS OS.

There’s a reason for System Restore. Some people recommend completely reformatting their Windows installation every 6 months or so, I just Restore. Saves a lot of time as long as Restore itself isn’t crippled.

I like 98 better for most older machines because it’s a lot nimbler then ME on the same specs, but today even most older pcs are cheap to upgrade to enough second hand ram to run either one quick enough that it doesn’t really make a critical difference.

By: David Duke

David Duke — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 06:25:26 +0000

I don’t recall it being much worse or better then 98. I do believe it was somewhat slower, it does have heavier hardware requirments of course.

Then again, I’ve probably been on the lucky side. ME has a horrendous rep and reps don’t just happen. I believe that all these people have had more bad experiences with ME then any other MS OS.

By: I-user

I-user — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:33:40 +0000

I have a desktop that is still using Win ME and have only a few squawks with it. The processor, etc. is the slow part not the OS. XP did nothing for it. I also use Mandriva 2007 Spring with no significant problems (not on the desktop, Linux just CRAWLED on that). I really don’t have a worst OS to mention. (My uses may vary with others though.)

By: I-user

I-user — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:33:40 +0000