*You have startled the Aureal Vortex userbase*

ofcourse 20 years later it doesn't seem as bad as current windows generation. Missing real mode dos is a feature, and VXD incompatibilities are also a feature. So ME isn't broken it's supposed to be that way. You can backport realmode DOS and if your hardware has ME drivers and you don't need VXDs ME is fine.

There's even a thread on here somewhere about taking a second look at ME because of "quality of life" features like builtin PKZIP extraction support, builtin USB storage support, and of course a broader array of stock drivers for late 90s hardware.

Personally, I never used it, but I had already been exposed to Windows 2000, and I think a lot of complaining about ME was the (accurate) fact that it was exceedingly silly to build yet another release based on the Windows 95 architecture at that late date, to run on Pentium II/III machines where NT no longer had overwhelmingly high requirements. At less than six years from release to EOL it's the shortest lifetime Windows ever.

As discussed in Undocumented Windows 95 (a good read) there was a lot of confusion in the popular press and even in parts of the technical community about whether Windows 95 eliminated DOS, replaced DOS, doesn't run on DOS, etc., and how much of that is even accurate or relevant. Some felt there had been a sleight of hand or that they were "cheated" by the DOS-based, Virtual 8086-mode based, and 16-bit components remaining in Win9x. The "removal" of real mode DOS in ME probably just antagonized them further generating antipathy to that OS.

If you're like many of us, you end up with more vintage systems than OSes to run on them, so you may as well have a ME machine since your machines will multiply anyway 😁

jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-06-08, 01:02:

There's even a thread on here somewhere about taking a second look at ME because of "quality of life" features like builtin PKZI […]
Show full quote

There's even a thread on here somewhere about taking a second look at ME because of "quality of life" features like builtin PKZIP extraction support, builtin USB storage support, and of course a broader array of stock drivers for late 90s hardware.

Personally, I never used it, but I had already been exposed to Windows 2000, and I think a lot of complaining about ME was the (accurate) fact that it was exceedingly silly to build yet another release based on the Windows 95 architecture at that late date, to run on Pentium II/III machines where NT no longer had overwhelmingly high requirements. At less than six years from release to EOL it's the shortest lifetime Windows ever.

As discussed in Undocumented Windows 95 (a good read) there was a lot of confusion in the popular press and even in parts of the technical community about whether Windows 95 eliminated DOS, replaced DOS, doesn't run on DOS, etc., and how much of that is even accurate or relevant. Some felt there had been a sleight of hand or that they were "cheated" by the DOS-based, Virtual 8086-mode based, and 16-bit components remaining in Win9x. The "removal" of real mode DOS in ME probably just antagonized them further generating antipathy to that OS.

If you're like many of us, you end up with more vintage systems than OSes to run on them, so you may as well have a ME machine since your machines will multiply anyway 😁

Yes, I also have to consider that I was just a silly young man who only knew about computers from what he read in magazines. I must confess that I avoided using XP for MANY years (until 2006 I think), at that time, the first problem with XP was that it was terrible running it on a pentium 1 (I had P1 computers until 2007), and even upgrading to 128mb, it was SLOW. XP also had problems running DOS games before the service pack (it was as bad as NT/2K at running DOS games), and I thought that theme was very "fisher price", it had a huge prejudice against XP. I loved it after SP2, and when I started running it on a Pentium 2 onwards.

Maybe all that hate with ME was just prejudice and ignorance that I heard around.

I have many machines, and most are 98se or XP. I have a project of a "Mega98" that I was building to meet my needs, including fixed files, updates up to 2008 in my native language, and other things, and I thought I would create something like that for ME as well.

I think most of it's bad name comes from these:

• The no-DOS issue alienated many users and reviewers.
• Press didn't find enough new features to like it, so they would rather thrash it.
• There were many real issues with drivers, specially at first, and I think this is the most valid argument against it.

And, yeah... yet another iteration of the 9x saga with no important new features was somewhat mediocre...

But I am not sure it really was that bad. My parents' computer ran it for years without issues, same install, very stable, no problems.

Granted, it was not a computer where anyone would go blindly installing crap, because it was a system "for serious work", but it had a couple of printers attached, a few games, your usual productivity apps, a few scientific ones and a kid poking around.

Actually, I plan to re-check all of this, since I intend to install it somewhere pretty soon and see how that goes now.

Rikintosh wrote on 2023-06-08, 00:11:

3. I liked the ME's USB, Network, fast boot, and (I could be wrong) NTFS support. Is it possible to have all this in the 98?

- Windows 98 has USB support, only lacks support for USB storage - but it can be added
- I have no idea what you liked about ME's network support - there's no important functionality added there, only built-in drivers for some newer NICs (which can be easily added to 98SE, of course). On the other hand, ME is incompatible with certain older network hardware (Arcnet) and software (some Lantastic and Netware clients).
- faster boot is probably the only advantage of ME, I'm afraid it can't be outraced by 98SE
- you're wrong about NTFS support, no DOS-based Windows has it

I remember having problems with drivers and error screens sometimes and didn't like the lack of dos but anyway it was not that bad for daily use, it just became like an internet meme and everybody "has to hate it", as comic sans, atari 2600 ET and so on

Now I just remembered that I made a computer with off the shelf parts for the girlfriend i had at that time and curiously it only worked properly with Windows ME.

This reminds me of an older thread from yeears ago.
It's still interesting to read, I think.
Windows Me - "Misunderstood Edition"

Grzyb wrote on 2023-06-08, 03:04:

- Windows 98 has USB support, only lacks support for USB storage - but it can be added

Seconded. I just learned recently that USB-interfaced Logitech Extreme 3D Pro flight joystick can be used on Win98SE without driver whatsoever; Win98SE has built-in support.

Rikintosh wrote on 2023-06-08, 00:11:

5. ME used dos 8.0, and 98 used dos 7.1. I remember having a hard time running some dos games on ME, I really like being able to open dos games directly on windows 98 and play them without having to restart the computer, is there any fix that allows me to do this on ME?

You can still run DOS games within Windows Me, what actually happened was that all the ways to access to MS-DOS mode out of the box were removed.

There are workarounds to get MS-DOS mode back, but they come with limitations that weren't present in previous versions of Windows 9x. I can't get Zone 66 to run as the integrated XMS driver can't be completely disabled. 🙁

6. Is there a way to use ME under DOS 7.1?

No.

Grzyb wrote on 2023-06-08, 03:04:

- Windows 98 has USB support, only lacks support for USB storage - but it can be added - I have no idea what you liked about ME' […]
Show full quote

Rikintosh wrote on 2023-06-08, 00:11:

3. I liked the ME's USB, Network, fast boot, and (I could be wrong) NTFS support. Is it possible to have all this in the 98?

- Windows 98 has USB support, only lacks support for USB storage - but it can be added
- I have no idea what you liked about ME's network support - there's no important functionality added there, only built-in drivers for some newer NICs (which can be easily added to 98SE, of course). On the other hand, ME is incompatible with certain older network hardware (Arcnet) and software (some Lantastic and Netware clients).
- faster boot is probably the only advantage of ME, I'm afraid it can't be outraced by 98SE
- you're wrong about NTFS support, no DOS-based Windows has it

Yes, but this requires nusb33 which is not included on the windows cd, this means I have to burn a cd to put on the target machine, as ME has this on the out of the box install.

ME uses a more modern networking system which I believe came from win2k, it is MUCH faster to boot, and more stable.

As much as i have understood, there were 2 things that "ruined" Windows ME:
1. Slightly less compatible MS-DOS 8.0. It has "embedded" himem.sys built-in IIRC, that lessens your options for configurations.
2. WDM drivers. Not that it was bad idea, but hardware driver engineers were unfamiliar with WDM stuff and made lots of bad drivers. It wasn't WinME's fault, really.

BTW, I've already posted about that abomination too many times, and don't want to repeat myself...

Re: I wish I had discovered Windows ME sooner!
Re: I wish I had discovered Windows ME sooner!
Re: I wish I had discovered Windows ME sooner!

Grzyb wrote on 2023-06-08, 16:03:

BTW, I've already posted about that abomination too many times, and don't want to repeat myself... […]
Show full quote

BTW, I've already posted about that abomination too many times, and don't want to repeat myself...

Re: I wish I had discovered Windows ME sooner!
Re: I wish I had discovered Windows ME sooner!
Re: I wish I had discovered Windows ME sooner!

Windows Me was a rushed stopgap if you ask me. Microsoft originally intended to succeed Windows 98 SE with a NT-based version aimed at consumers earlier (Neptune, based on Windows 2000), but the situation at the time didn't allow it.

GigAHerZ wrote on 2023-06-08, 15:52:

As much as i have understood, there were 2 things that "ruined" Windows ME:
1. Slightly less compatible MS-DOS 8.0. It has "embedded" himem.sys built-in IIRC, that lessens your options for configurations.
2. WDM drivers. Not that it was bad idea, but hardware driver engineers were unfamiliar with WDM stuff and made lots of bad drivers. It wasn't WinME's fault, really.

MS also "dongled" some versions of Win Me. They'd check BIOS ID or something.

Win Me nolonger ran Personal Web Server, I remember. SysEdit tool was removed, too?

But most importantly, WinMe turned out to be unstable due its form of distribution.
It was sold as upgrade/update and so it was installed atop an existing Windows 3.1 or 9x installation.

If correctly installed, by starting Me's SETUP in WIN9X folder via DOS bootable disk, it's not that bad.
It will ask for Windows 3.x or 9x original media for verification, then proceed to create a fresh and clean Win Me installation.
But who cared about this in practice? 😞

Jo22 wrote on 2023-06-08, 16:37:

If correctly installed, by starting Me's SETUP in WIN9X folder via DOS bootable disk, it's not that bad.
It will ask for Windows 3.x or 9x original media for verification, then proceed to create a fresh and clean Win Me installation.
But who cared about this in practice? 😞

Nobody did real upgrades in practice. MS long sold cheap "upgrade" copies and it had long been the practice by Microsoft to allow checksuming the previous version's disk (even back to the DOS 6.2 days, possibly even early Windows), so people just kept the old OS disk just for this. So everyone was already doing this. ME in the wild is mainly the upgrade version because it was very cheap already, and I think this was a time rebates were on every consumer product (I remember something about a rebate available when it was released). So it was about the cheapest version of Windows bar buying a PC with OEM preinstalled. But few people did actually buy a computer with ME given its short consumer life too. Anyway in practice, upgrade copies work the same as full versions installers, you just need the previous OS disk too.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-06-08, 16:37:

MS also "dongled" some versions of Win Me. They'd check BIOS ID or something.

OEM copies did this, if you bought a computer preinstalled with ME or any other 9x, that was the risk you took in the copy they gave you with your machine.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2023-06-08, 17:47:

Nobody did real upgrades in practice. MS long sold cheap "upgrade" copies and it had long been the practice by Microsoft to allo […]
Show full quote

Jo22 wrote on 2023-06-08, 16:37:

If correctly installed, by starting Me's SETUP in WIN9X folder via DOS bootable disk, it's not that bad.
It will ask for Windows 3.x or 9x original media for verification, then proceed to create a fresh and clean Win Me installation.
But who cared about this in practice? 😞

Nobody did real upgrades in practice. MS long sold cheap "upgrade" copies and it had long been the practice by Microsoft to allow checksuming the previous version's disk (even back to the DOS 6.2 days, possibly even early Windows), so people just kept the old OS disk just for this. So everyone was already doing this. ME in the wild is mainly the upgrade version because it was very cheap already, and I think this was a time rebates were on every consumer product (I remember something about a rebate available when it was released). So it was about the cheapest version of Windows bar buying a PC with OEM preinstalled. But few people did actually buy a computer with ME given its short consumer life too. Anyway in practice, upgrade copies work the same as full versions installers, you just need the previous OS disk too.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-06-08, 16:37:

MS also "dongled" some versions of Win Me. They'd check BIOS ID or something.

OEM copies did this, if you bought a computer preinstalled with ME or any other 9x, that was the risk you took in the copy they gave you with your machine.

In my country, OEM versions were freely sold without hardware, with the only downside being that Microsoft refused to provide support.
So it was an unpleasant surprise that OEM versions of Windows could suddenly be dongled.

Second, it was common here that a new PC was bundled with both OEM versions of Windows 98SE and Win Me (physical CDs).
Those CDs were usually full Installation CDs (Me as upgrade), even if labeled "recovery" sometimes.

Edit: By the time Win Me was released, I mean. Around the year 2000.
That was back then when Pentium III PCs were new, if memory serves.

And then there were also dongled Win Me CDs among them, sadly, sometimes.
Those usually didn't have the shiny hologram, though, if memory serves (speaking under correction).
On the other hand, some Me CDs without the hologram were not dongled, either. It was really confusing. 🤷‍♂️

Those users who did an instant re-install of Windows after purchase (common here, because users didn't like pre-installed bloatware from Symantec and other shady companies) probably didn't know this.

They installed Windows in order - 98SE first, then Win Me.
If they only knew that Windows Me setup did allow fresh installation without pre-installed Windows.

Edit: Some users also simply installed 98SE only and threw their Me CD out of the Windows.
Ok, maybe they just didn't touch the Me CD and happily stayed with 98SE.

Arbitrarily locking out real mode DOS as others have stated, was the biggest issue likely.
But also bugging early System Restore garbage, as well as flaky drivers in general.

People thought that they were getting Windows 2000 Home Edition, but they really just getting 98TE with some window dressing and removal of core features.

The thread linked by Jo22 has an extensive and interesting discussion.

WinME is definitely a victim of the "bandwagon attack meme" tendency. Let's call it the Nickelback of OSes.

Like I said in other similar discussions, I truly believe people's complaints at the time, with the installation by updating issue, the rushed drivers, etc.

As someone who will always consider Win98SE my true retro "home" OS, I have to say that nowadays with today's hindsight and matured drivers, WinME is the most stable and rock solid as Win9x ever got. Win98 can be tamed and made reliable and solid, but it comes at the expense of a lot of pitfalls and caveats to manage, adding a lot of trial and error with your particular hardware and drivers. All of these issues even now, after all these years, and people complain about it infinitely less or not at all...

In today's light, WinME gives you a fast booting, truly reliable OS from the Win9x era. Never had a single BSOD. Already has USB preinstalled, has a sleek and optimistic feel to it, a wonderful startup sound theme, I just love how it looks and feels. It's perfect for Win9x games and you can also play DOS games through Windows with no problem if you wish. You do have the option, it's more an issue for the purists than a real actual issue in itself. And if you want to play DOS games in a true DOS environment with all that it provides then you wouldn't do that with the hardware you'd be considering installing WinME on anyway.

I also like Win2000 SP4 but being NT based I never saw anyone criticising it for not having DOS, it's just accepted as par for the course. And WinME actually has better benchmarks than Win98SE, Win2k or WinXP (99% sure on this last one though) on most comparisons with Win9x games.

I mainly used Win98SE (with Plus! installed) as a kid and that's where my "nostalgia home" lies. I remember Win2000 through my father's PC at the time so there are some nice memories too, it was his last OS. I also used XP for more than 12 years, and I loved it. But as someone that discovered WinME not that long ago and approached it with true curiosity and without any kind of prejudice, I can honestly say that it's great. Installed it on my Tualatin based PC that I built and I like I said in other threads, I'll never play GTA III, Vice City, Max Payne 1 & 2, Half-Life, Mafia, etc. on any other OS.

I recently finished getting the parts for a Gaming/Multimedia PC that I needed, using it for games from late 90's to maybe 2003 and the occasional DOS game, as a CD burning station and as a basic playback station to record some stuff on my cassette deck. Guess what OS I'll be installing!