schmatzler wrote on 2020-05-17, 00:37:

386SX wrote on 2020-05-16, 15:48:

I didn't know such disc existed at all. But was it released only to companies, oem or what?

It was available for order directly from the Microsoft website. At least here in Germany, the update CD was also bundled with one of the biggest computer magazines at the time.

Would you happen to have the German version of the CD and could you upload an image somewhere?
I have been looking for it for some time now.

dr_st wrote on 2021-06-20, 16:24:

Doesn't it offer better support for DOS games running inside a Windows v86 environment, compared to an NT-based OS?

Pro tip: don't run DOS games in a Windows environment unless it's Win3.1 or earlier.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-20, 20:52:

Pro tip: don't run DOS games in a Windows environment unless it's Win3.1 or earlier.

For a pro tip, it's a pretty bad one.

For starts, Win9x can actually run many DOS games that simply crash in Win3.x. Games that use DOS extenders come to mind. And some sound cards support better features for DOS games when run inside Win9x than in native DOS. For example, General Midi support on Creative AWE cards, or Sound Blaster emulation for more advanced PCI cards.

Many years ago, I didn't know all this, so I too thought that DOS games can/should only be run under pure DOS. I was surprised to learn that sometimes running them in Win9x can offer a richer and more hassle-free experience. Of course, nowadays, with more than 2 decades of advances in hardware and software, running them in DOSBox on any modern OS tends to be even better.

dr_st wrote on 2021-06-20, 21:02:

For a pro tip, it's a pretty bad one. […]
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WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-20, 20:52:

Pro tip: don't run DOS games in a Windows environment unless it's Win3.1 or earlier.

For a pro tip, it's a pretty bad one.

For starts, Win9x can actually run many DOS games that simply crash in Win3.x. Games that use DOS extenders come to mind. And some sound cards support better features for DOS games when run inside Win9x than in native DOS. For example, General Midi support on Creative AWE cards, or Sound Blaster emulation for more advanced PCI cards.

Many years ago, I didn't know all this, so I too thought that DOS games can/should only be run under pure DOS. I was surprised to learn that sometimes running them in Win9x can offer a richer and more hassle-free experience. Of course, nowadays, with more than 2 decades of advances in hardware and software, running them in DOSBox on any modern OS tends to be even better.

I agree. I would even go so far as to say that there is absolutely 0 advantage to running DOS games under Windows 3.x .

There are only 2 possible outcomes when running a DOS game under Windows 3.x :
a) it runs as well as under DOS
b) it runs with more issues than under DOS or does not run at all.

With Windows 9.x , scenario a) is much more common than under Windows 3.x . Additionally Windows 9.x has possible outcome c) :
c) DOS game runs under Windows while taking advantage of resources provided to DOS games by Windows (like sound blaster emulation or access to GM synths, as mentioned by dr_st ).

C0deHunter wrote on 2020-05-12, 06:42:

Its like a stripped down version of Windows 2000 Pro (GUI), fused with Windows 98SE features! I remember back in the day I heard […]
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Its like a stripped down version of Windows 2000 Pro (GUI), fused with Windows 98SE features! I remember back in the day I heard about it's *instability*, but to be honest it has been playing on my real retro system (my sig) for a month, and I LOVE it!

p.s. If I could only get the START menu *label (side-ways) to display the "Windows Millennium
Edition text"
My Windows ME Start menu: It does not say Windows ME Millenuim Edition!

Just my two cents: I had a Win98SE and an XP build. I wanted a 1.4 Ghz Tualatin, and it could ease out the transition between those two PC's, but lacked true reasons to invest in finding a motherboard and acquiring it along with the Tualatin itself and the more specific than usual cooler for it. I decided to take a chance on Win ME and proceeded to make the pc on that premise. Having used it for half a year now, it makes the transition between those periods/builds perfect in my view.

I certainly believe the complaints at the time from people who used it as a main pc, not just for gaming and sporadic use as a retro pc with the advantage of hindsight in every way. Maybe I was lucky in my hardware/drivers combination, but honestly everything runs smoothly and reliably and more than that, Windows Millennium just totally captures the atmosphere of that particular time, whether in the "new features", its ambiance and optimism, I just love how it looks and feels.

As a transition build with software only from its time period, it shares or overlaps with both the 98SE and XP PC's in some instances but to be honest when that's the case I won't run that software on anything other than ME, that's how happy I am. What impressed me the most is the sensation of reliability and sturdiness that my (although) stable Win98SE just isn't capable of providing (i.e. various occurrences of games that were installed/confirmed running that were used many times since, and stop running later even though nothing was installed/updated since then as the build was finished).

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-06-20, 19:38:

Would you happen to have the German version of the CD and could you upload an image somewhere?
I have been looking for it for some time now.

Already did that a while ago, here it is:
https://archive.org/details/ms-security-cd-2004-ger

Looking back with the benefit of 20 years hindsight, it's somewhat laughable that anybody used Win95/98 as a high water mark for things like stability, compatibility, reliability, etc - in any argument whatsoever. These days, there are few things on the desktop capable of so fully disabusing the "ye good olde days" notion than a couple of interminably frustrating hours spent grappling with a misbehaving Win9x setup.

ME's problem (standard intergenerational teething issues aside) is that it was an incremental, gap-filling release whose improvements were easily dismissed by contrast to the NT-based next gen that everybody knew was coming*. A quick wax, polish and tuning [ME] before swapping out the entire engine [XP].

But as we've seen since, it was still a perfectly valid release with some perfectly valid use cases and even some elements to rather like.

*we geeks were already using 2000 anyway!

dr_st wrote on 2021-06-20, 21:02:

Win9x can actually run many DOS games that simply crash in Win3.x. Games that use DOS extenders come to mind. And some sound cards support better features for DOS games when run inside Win9x than in native DOS. For example, General Midi support on Creative AWE cards, or Sound Blaster emulation for more advanced PCI cards.

Many years ago, I didn't know all this, so I too thought that DOS games can/should only be run under pure DOS. I was surprised to learn that sometimes running them in Win9x can offer a richer and more hassle-free experience.

I've had the opposite experience. Almost every DOS game I ever tried to run in Windows would run fine in Win3.1 but shit the bed if I tried running it in Win95. Then again, the DOS games that I played when Win3.1 was current (Holiday Lemmings, Secret Agent, lots of Learning Company games) weren't the same DOS games I played when Win95 was current (Duke3D), so it's not a perfect comparison. And then there was C&C: Red Alert, where the Win95 version wouldn't work in Win95 but the DOS version did for some reason. Red Alert was just very stupidly programmed in a lot of ways.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-21, 00:17:

Looking back with the benefit of 20 years hindsight, it's somewhat laughable that anybody used Win95/98 as a high water mark for things like stability, compatibility, reliability, etc - in any argument whatsoever.

For stability/reliability, you're correct, they were a disaster. For compatibility, though? Win98 supported hardware and software made as late as 2004 or 2005, while its ability to boot into real-mode DOS made it compatible with almost every DOS program ever made. That's a 23-year compatibility window, minimum. Even XP, which was designed to support programs written for Win95 and which can run on hardware made as late as 2014, only has a 19-year compatibility window (if we ignore things like Firefox and World of Warcraft continuing to support it until 2017 and Steam not pulling the plug until 2019)

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-21, 05:59:

I've had the opposite experience. Almost every DOS game I ever tried to run in Windows would run fine in Win3.1 but shit the bed if I tried running it in Win95. Then again, the DOS games that I played when Win3.1 was current (Holiday Lemmings, Secret Agent, lots of Learning Company games) weren't the same DOS games I played when Win95 was current (Duke3D), so it's not a perfect comparison.

Precisely. Our individual experiences are inherently limited to what we had at the time. I also think that earlier versions of Win95 may not have been as compatible as later ones, because Microsoft kept working on improving compatibility (and hardware vendors improved their drivers simultaneously).

It is only after the internet boom, where you could get a large number of users sharing their experiences, that it became possible to systemize information, and see the big picture.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-17, 07:32:

Anyone else remember when XP was refered to as the ME of NT?

Yeah, I didn't actually upgrade from 2000 to XP until well after SP2, and even then it was for only a few years at most. I installed the Windows 7 Beta/Preview builds at earliest opportunity and still dislike the OS.

schmatzler wrote on 2021-06-21, 00:12:

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-06-20, 19:38:

Would you happen to have the German version of the CD and could you upload an image somewhere?
I have been looking for it for some time now.

Already did that a while ago, here it is:
https://archive.org/details/ms-security-cd-2004-ger

Man, awesome! Thank you very much! 😁

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-21, 05:59:

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-21, 00:17:

Looking back with the benefit of 20 years hindsight, it's somewhat laughable that anybody used Win95/98 as a high water mark for things like stability, compatibility, reliability, etc - in any argument whatsoever.

For stability/reliability, you're correct, they were a disaster. For compatibility, though? Win98 supported hardware and software made as late as 2004 or 2005, while its ability to boot into real-mode DOS made it compatible with almost every DOS program ever made. That's a 23-year compatibility window, minimum. Even XP, which was designed to support programs written for Win95 and which can run on hardware made as late as 2014, only has a 19-year compatibility window (if we ignore things like Firefox and World of Warcraft continuing to support it until 2017 and Steam not pulling the plug until 2019)

The compatibility era was indeed quite extensive, on paper, and often even in reality too. It's inclusion in my comment can be safely shelved under hair-splitting - reflecting my opinion that an unstable architecture by it's very nature burdens the notion of compatibility with a permanent "when it's all playing nicely together" qualifier.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-17, 07:32:

Anyone else remember when XP was refered to as the ME of NT?

No, but I've heard that ME stood for "Major Errors" and XP stood for "eXtra Problems"

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-21, 19:52:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-17, 07:32:

Anyone else remember when XP was refered to as the ME of NT?

No, but I've heard that ME stood for "Major Errors" and XP stood for "eXtra Problems"

Major Errors answers to General Protection Fault.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-21, 21:37:

Major Errors answers to General Protection Fault.

Are you sure? I thought it answered to General Disarray.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-06-21, 00:17:

ME's problem (standard intergenerational teething issues aside) is that it was an incremental, gap-filling release whose improvements were easily dismissed by contrast to the NT-based next gen that everybody knew was coming*. A quick wax, polish and tuning [ME] before swapping out the entire engine [XP].

Well, and even the WinME team at Microsoft seemed to hate it and wanted to move to NT5.1+ projects because that kernel was technically superior. It's actually a bit of a miracle ME wasn't cancelled given the tight schedule -- it pretty much did not make sense. It probably only happened because NT5 kept slipping and some boss wanted a product launch of windows for home users in 2000. I mean, look at XP on launch in 2001, still wasn't actually ready... so what home version could they really ship in 2000?

If anything, Windows ME seems to be the only 9x-based Windows version that gets along well with my Dell Optiplex GX150. On Windows 98SE, I've been experiencing in-game freezes and shutdowns on occasions. None of these issues happened on Windows ME or 2000, which is weird because people say Windows 98SE is more stable than ME and I really wanted to get 98SE working on this computer because people seem to hate ME so much. 😕

Did anybody you do Beta testing in Windows ME? back then it was very simple to sign up to have the Beta versions mailed to you from MS. I still have the CD zip folder they sent at one point. They also sent out some sticky-notes and I think a few other small things.

I did the same for 98SE and still have the final CD but it refuses to accept the CD key that was provided with it for some reason. It did work back in the day but when I tried to use it years later it wouldn't work.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-08-31, 23:30:

Did anybody you do Beta testing in Windows ME? back then it was very simple to sign up to have the Beta versions mailed to you from MS. I still have the CD zip folder they sent at one point. They also sent out some sticky-notes and I think a few other small things.

I did the same for 98SE and still have the final CD but it refuses to accept the CD key that was provided with it for some reason. It did work back in the day but when I tried to use it years later it wouldn't work.

Beta key expiration date -related, perhaps?

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-09-01, 00:36:

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-08-31, 23:30:

Did anybody you do Beta testing in Windows ME? back then it was very simple to sign up to have the Beta versions mailed to you from MS. I still have the CD zip folder they sent at one point. They also sent out some sticky-notes and I think a few other small things.

I did the same for 98SE and still have the final CD but it refuses to accept the CD key that was provided with it for some reason. It did work back in the day but when I tried to use it years later it wouldn't work.

Beta key expiration date -related, perhaps?

Maybe,but it still wouldn't work even with the date set way back so not sure.