VOGONS


First post, by Fusion

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Everyone seems to hate on ME for many reasons. But I find its much more stable, includes built in USB support, probably better memory management, fast boot times, and I enjoy the UI improvements as well. Of course when ME was released it was a big flop but updates and driver support has fixed all the grievances people were complaining about IMO.

Anyone else with me? Or am I the weird guy who runs ME? 😵

Pentium III @ 1.28Ghz - Intel SE440xBX-2 - 384MB PC100 - ATi Radeon DDR 64MB @ 200/186 - SB Live! 5.1 - Windows ME

Reply 1 of 44, by cyclone3d

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ME doesn't have a real DOS mode without hacks.. and those are not what I would call stable.

For a Windows only build it is fine though.

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Reply 2 of 44, by Fusion

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Yeah I have a separate DOS machine so I don't require DOS support. I can see why that would be a issue for anyone who wants a Win/DOS machine.

Pentium III @ 1.28Ghz - Intel SE440xBX-2 - 384MB PC100 - ATi Radeon DDR 64MB @ 200/186 - SB Live! 5.1 - Windows ME

Reply 3 of 44, by leileilol

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There's something endearing about its off-brand Win2000 look and feel...

A lot of WinME's infamous "annoyances" in old flamewars were introduced earlier in Win2000 with little incident. 🙄

Why i'm using WinME on my P4 rig is for the PCI speed with my particular chipset being fine. Oddly my PCX2 seems slow in Win98 now, but is fine in ME

What I don't like about WinME si how it handles GPFs - it just instantly shuts down, and obscures whatever message it would have for a clue before doing so.

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Reply 4 of 44, by Fusion

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I'm a Win2k fanboy also so maybe that's why I love the look of ME. xD

Great signature, btw.

Pentium III @ 1.28Ghz - Intel SE440xBX-2 - 384MB PC100 - ATi Radeon DDR 64MB @ 200/186 - SB Live! 5.1 - Windows ME

Reply 5 of 44, by clueless1

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As a retro OS, I'm a big fan of ME, though I never used it when it was current. I have a dedicated DOS PC, so no need for MS-DOS mode...which makes ME perfect for Win9x era gaming, for all the reasons you mentioned.

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Reply 6 of 44, by keropi

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I like ME for some higher speed p3+ with good hardware that has WDM drivers. I personally never had any problems with those rules but I can see hardware/driver combos becoming a hell with ME...
Once PCHEALTH is killed all is good for me 😀

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Reply 7 of 44, by Shagittarius

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ME was never stable for me at the time of release so I went back to 98SE until XP came around. I've never needed to give it another chance since 98 is good enough for everything I've needed.

Reply 8 of 44, by Errius

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A problem is that when it came out, people weren't comparing it to Windows 98 but to Windows 2000, which had been released a few months earlier. That's not a fair comparison.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 11 of 44, by dr_st

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My feelings are pretty much what was already said. For a combined DOS/Windows setup - 98SE all the way; for a Windows-only build (targeting games of a specific era) - WinME wins due to some extra features and improved hardware compatibility out-of-the-box.

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Reply 12 of 44, by luckybob

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I mean, I haven't read the other posts, but you seem like a nice enough person. I have only a few memories of 1998, so i can safely say I prefer you over 1998.

Maybe we can get to know each other over a coffee?

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 13 of 44, by LSS10999

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WinME had a Windows 2000-ish interface and included some additional multimedia goodies that Windows 2000 didn't (like WMP7, Movie Maker). But compared to Windows 2000 and even Windows 98SE it was nowhere near the word "stable". I remembered seeing much more BSoDs and system crashes than Windows 98SE that eventually I only use Windows 98SE from that point on.

Reply 14 of 44, by appiah4

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I have Me installed on my Tualatin build and 98 installed on my K6-2 (as well as several OEMs). To be honest, Me has nothing over 98 aside from universal USB storage drivers (which can be added to Win98) and System Restore, and most people disable that so at that point it's just 98 without functional DOS 7.x. I keep it on my Tualatin for the Restore function so I can roll back driver changes easily. I used to hate it, now I made my peace with it, but I still prefer 98SE.

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Reply 15 of 44, by gdjacobs

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appiah4 wrote:

I have Me installed on my Tualatin build and 98 installed on my K6-2 (as well as several OEMs). To be honest, Me has nothing over 98 aside from universal USB storage drivers (which can be added to Win98) and System Restore, and most people disable that so at that point it's just 98 without functional DOS 7.x. I keep it on my Tualatin for the Restore function so I can roll back driver changes easily. I used to hate it, now I made my peace with it, but I still prefer 98SE.

System restore on ME was pretty infamous as by default it would add checkpoints until you'd consumed all disk space. Oops!

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Reply 16 of 44, by appiah4

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gdjacobs wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

I have Me installed on my Tualatin build and 98 installed on my K6-2 (as well as several OEMs). To be honest, Me has nothing over 98 aside from universal USB storage drivers (which can be added to Win98) and System Restore, and most people disable that so at that point it's just 98 without functional DOS 7.x. I keep it on my Tualatin for the Restore function so I can roll back driver changes easily. I used to hate it, now I made my peace with it, but I still prefer 98SE.

System restore on ME was pretty infamous as by default it would add checkpoints until you'd consumed all disk space. Oops!

Not an issue with modern humongous storage options though.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 17 of 44, by Errius

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With boot managers you can dual boot pure DOS and Windows ME.

You can even dual boot Windows 98 and Windows ME. This is useful if you want to compare Windows 98 and Windows ME on identical hardware.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 18 of 44, by FFXIhealer

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My only experience with Windows Me was an old E-machines PC my mother used to use pre-2008 while I was away on military duty. During a break between tours, I built her a completely new PC running Vista. Why did I choose that? Well, Windows 7 was still in post-development at the time and wouldn't be released until much later that year. Windows Me was crashing almost daily on my mother and she was wringing her hands about tossing it out of the window. Windows XP was getting on age at that point and I wanted to future-proof my mother as much as possible. I also knew about peoples' issues with less-than-adequate hardware and how much bitching they did, so I planned ahead.

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.56GHz
4GB DDR2-800
NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS
640GB SATA HDD
Windows Vista Home Premium

It was my first PC using SATA hard drives, but the board also had an IDE port, so I was able to connect the hard drive out of the WinMe system directly in order to keep her files and re-install the few old games (she still uses an old DOS-based SOLITAIRE game that now uses DOSBox).

So for me, I stepped from Windows 3.1/DOS to Windows 95 to Windows 98, then skipped everything to hit Windows XP directly. Moved from there to Vista, then to 7, then used 8.1 for over a year at a job (and yes, I liked it too) before finally pioneering the Windows 10 upgrades in 2015.

And before anybody hates on me for using Vista, that Core2 system worked flawlessly until 2016, where outdated Google Chrome and IE web conflicts forced my hand and I changed out my mother's PC to something similar, but with a bit more oomph.

Intel Core 2 Quad 3.0GHz (Q9650)
8GB DDR3-1600 (the MB manual claims it only supports 4GB, but it obviously works because Windows is happy with all 8GB)
NVIDIA GeForce GT1030
240GB SanDisk SATA SSD (SATA2 speed limits reads to ~260MB/s)
1TB SATA HDD
Windows 10 Home 64-bit

Should last her many years from now. But anyway, the reason I haven't tried Windows Me or Windows 2000 on my older retro builds is literally because I don't have a copy of either. I only have 95, 98, XP, .... hell, I don't even have my DVD of Vista anymore - or at least I can't find it, because I'd love to have a retro gaming system in the Core2 series running Vista.

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Reply 19 of 44, by dr_st

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Well, even though it's a thread about WinME, what the heck...

I'm posting this from my Vista system, built late 2008, with very similar specs to yours (QX9650, 8GB). It's running great, but SW incompatibilities are killing it, since Microsoft never backported some key technologies to Vista as they did to Win7. I'm actually considering doing something I've never done before - and perform an in-place upgrade to Win7.

My only WinME machine is an A31p laptop used basically only to show bed-time DVD shows to the kids. It also has some games installed, but I hardly ever play them.

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