I understand it was met with scorn and still is by most people, but why am I seeing so many people using it for their P3 boxes? Not as many as people using 98SE or 2000, of course, but it's still a sizable amount of people. Is there something they know about it that I don't? Have they figured out how to stabilize it?

ME boots much faster, especially when networking is used. That's the main tangible advantage that comes to mind.

nicer looking UI is one advantage I guess ,WinME pretty much took Windows 2000's look , which is nicer looking in my opinion.

Which version is better to use? Windows 98se -> Windows ME UPGRADE? Or just the retail version?

IMHO I just use Windows 98 and, sometimes, install the Windows ME shell (just the shell, not the whole 98SE2ME thing - I've had some issues with WDM sound drivers). Windows ME, once updated and configured properly, is a nice Windows version, but I just find it boring for some reason.

Sedrosken wrote:

I understand it was met with scorn and still is by most people, but why am I seeing so many people using it for their P3 boxes? Not as many as people using 98SE or 2000, of course, but it's still a sizable amount of people. Is there something they know about it that I don't? Have they figured out how to stabilize it?

Use Windows 98SE2ME to upgrade your 98SE installation instead. You get support for all the newer technologies that ME supports without as much bugginess and with full DOS compatibility, which Microsoft crippled in ME.

honestly me is rock solid if you can get WDM drivers for everything

What has 98SE2ME done to my poor, poor icons?!

What?! What color depht are you using? Try checking and unchecking the checkbox in Display Properties that allows you to use more colors in icons (and reboot after each change). Also, get TweakUi and have it repair the icon cache.

In my case, I use Windows ME instead of 98SE just because of its much much better USB support. I have my old computer connected to my TV set, using my Logitech modern keyboard and mouse. When I first tried to install Windows 98 in this PC, I had many problems with these devices, needing to find a ps/2 keyboard just to install HID drivers.

The same case for USB pendrives. The system asked me for drivers for each separate device, so I needed to tell the computer where the drivers where, and after that, insert the Win98 CD I still don't know why, just to copy some 'needed files' again and again, which is reeeeeally annoying.

In Windows ME, however, all these issues are solved out-of-the-box, as everything you try to connect that is 'standard' works as usual like on a new pc 🤣

mmx_91 wrote:

The system asked me for drivers for each separate device, so I needed to tell the computer where the drivers where, and after that, insert the Win98 CD I still don't know why, just to copy some 'needed files' again and again, which is reeeeeally annoying.

Whenever that happens, you can usually say the "CD" is located in C:\Windows\System (or sometimes a related directory) and it will find the files it is looking for, so you don't need to put the CD in. Of course this only works when installing files that have already been installed - if they haven't been installed yet then you'll still need the CD. One reason why, if you have the space, copying the CD to the hard drive and installing from there is useful - if you leave the CD copy behind when you're done, Windows will always go back there and find the files it needs.

alexanrs wrote:

What?! What color depht are you using? Try checking and unchecking the checkbox in Display Properties that allows you to use more colors in icons (and reboot after each change). Also, get TweakUi and have it repair the icon cache.

I'm at 1280x1024 @ 60Hz using 32-bit color mode. Well, it didn't fix the pretty icons, but I guess I can just live with the 16-color icons. They might not be pretty but they do the job, render properly and are much quicker to load in a menu.

Can anybody say which choice is better:

Full copy of windows ME or
An upgrade from windows 98se?

Because i think that a full installation would all of his own drivers (and maybe included most problems too)
When upgraded, maybe some windows 98 se parts will be the same..

I hardly believe a Windows 98 install upgraded to ME would have anything worthwhile

Not sure why some people hate Windows ME. It's a solid operating system in my opinion if sure you don't care about DOS compatibility. Plus, it has newer drivers and probably causes less problems with larger amount of RAM and bigger size hard drives. Although, I haven't used it for 12 years or so.

It was buggy and more resource hungry than 98. Many bugs were eventually patched, and our retro machines usually have more RAM than many systems had at the time... And faster HDDs too.

For science, my newly-acquired Pentium III laptop (Latitude C610, PIII 750MHz, 256MB PC100, Rage Mobility 8MB with 1024x768 MAX res on internal screen, Crystal 4205 audio, 80GB Seagate Momentus 5400.2 PATA) will be an experimental ME install at first and I will see if all the computer clout I can muster will bring its stability under control and maybe re-enable MS-DOS mode for Monkey Island. If the experiment fails, I can't decide whether I will up the RAM to 512MB and run 2000/XP or I will run 98SE. If I can get ME stable, I might as well keep it that way. I'm going to buy a PCMCIA wireless G card and see if it will function under ME for wireless LAN goodness.

alexanrs wrote:

It was buggy and more resource hungry than 98. Many bugs were eventually patched, and our retro machines usually have more RAM than many systems had at the time... And faster HDDs too.

You hit the nail on it's head: usually we have more RAM in our old PC's.

Back in the day not only Windows ME was considered buggy, but often people said that Windows '98 or '95 was bad, too. Because RAM was expensive people bought, let's say Pentium II's in 1998, with 64MB RAM or 32MB in the worst case. Using Windows '98 along with resident programs for their printers, scanners, perhaps CD-burner (with a high buffer underrun ratio of course 😀), resident ICQ/MSN, etc.. Swapping memory to disk is one thing that you don't want on '9x/ME!

alexanrs wrote:

I hardly believe a Windows 98 install upgraded to ME would have anything worthwhile

Then you know NOTHING. 98SE2ME incorporates all of the new technologies in ME into a 98SE install. The reason for it is that somewhere along the line Microsoft broke parts of DOS compatibility in ME, whether accidentally or on purpose, and ME was buggy as hell. 98SE2ME allows you to "upgrade" to ME without losing any DOS compatibility. It is a superior build to straight ME.