WindowsME..... Sux or No Sux?

Discussions of applications and operating systems and any problems, tips or suggestions. Win XP, 9x/2k, Linux, NT, photo editing, Virus/Spyware help
Post Reply
User avatar
eGoCeNTRoNiX
Posts: 7362
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2002 12:51 pm
Location: HELL

WindowsME..... Sux or No Sux?

Post by eGoCeNTRoNiX »

Ok guys.. Looking for your thoughts on WindowsMe.. I've had to completely reformat 3 peoples HD's and do clean installs of ME in the past two weeks. Before doing this, they would crash upon opening almost any application. Burn a CD CRASH! Open IE CRASH! Play HalfLife CRASH! I mean what's up? They work find after I do a clean run. But if I use restore disks provided it doesn't fix the issue. Any ideas what's going on? Is it just ME? LMK... eGo
PM before Email People!!
Image
Heat Under eGoCeNTRoNiX :)
Who Farted? BEANIE!!!
!Welcome to the United States of the Offended!
User avatar
wvjohn
Posts: 9238
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 7:09 am
Contact:

Post by wvjohn »

it's really neither fish nor fowl. I'd stay with 98se or 2k. ME had a lot of stuff put in it so they could sell something when xp wasn't ready -
<a href="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=123" target="_blank" >Heatware</a>
User avatar
eGoCeNTRoNiX
Posts: 7362
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2002 12:51 pm
Location: HELL

I see...

Post by eGoCeNTRoNiX »

Thanx John.. BTW isn't that the guy from B&W? Just curious.. On another note.. I don't have a copy of windows98 SE I do have the first version of 98, as well as 95.. And I also have a copy of XPro. Is it worth spending the money on 98SE? Or should I just be putting XPro on my machines (that can handle it)? eGo
PM before Email People!!
Image
Heat Under eGoCeNTRoNiX :)
Who Farted? BEANIE!!!
!Welcome to the United States of the Offended!
User avatar
nexus_7
Posts: 10306
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 12:09 pm
Location: chicago land area.
Contact:

Post by nexus_7 »

for me, ME didnt last past 3 months...it also sucks as an OS besides the fact that it doesnt last. its 98se on FAT ware.

Greg
<a href="http://www.pcabusers.org" target="_new"> <img src="http://www.pcabusers.org/images1/banner.jpg" border="0"></a>
<a target=NEW href="http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_87793.html">JOIN the PCA Seti Team!</a>
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 33161
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Post by FlyingPenguin »

ME was never a power users OS. What it was meant for, and works great as, is an OS for computer newbies.

It's a much safer OS to put in grandma's computer. If she gets it in her head to delete the whole Windows folder, ME will usually try very hard to prevent her from doing it, and even if she succeeds it'll generally fix itself or restore an earlier restore point by itself.

Frankly if you're concerned about stability I'd go with Win2K or XP.
---
“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez

Image
User avatar
eGoCeNTRoNiX
Posts: 7362
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2002 12:51 pm
Location: HELL

So The Concensus is......

Post by eGoCeNTRoNiX »

That windows me, while good for novice users, is not a good thing for persons who know a little bit more about computers? For instance someone who is going to do a lot of burning CD's downloading and gaming or photo editing probably wouldn't want to use ME? You have all been a great help. I always felt there wasn't enough time between OS' between 98 and all the predecessors to XP. This just kind of confirms my beliefs.. lol.. eGo
PM before Email People!!
Image
Heat Under eGoCeNTRoNiX :)
Who Farted? BEANIE!!!
!Welcome to the United States of the Offended!
User avatar
wvjohn
Posts: 9238
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 7:09 am
Contact:

Post by wvjohn »

it is the lil' guy from B & W :)
<a href="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=123" target="_blank" >Heatware</a>
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 33161
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Post by FlyingPenguin »

If by "Photo Editing" you mean Photoshop then I would HIGHLY recommend 2K or XP. Photoshop benefits in performance GREATLY from a true multi-threaded, multi-tasking operating system.

Photoshop, being a memory hog, also runs much better on an NT-based OS (like 2K or XP) which are much more efficient at memory management.

Keep in mind that 2K & XP need more base memory than Win9x does. Bare minimum I would recommend is 256Mb. If you do Photoshop work then I'd put at least 512Mb in it.
---
“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez

Image
User avatar
ShibasScotch
Senior Member
Posts: 413
Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2002 12:44 am
Contact:

Post by ShibasScotch »

At the moment, i believe that 2k /w service pack still has the best stability, althou i use XP PRO because of the cool GUI, it is pretty stable, i just find that in all OS's there is going to be problems of corse, but ME IS THE PROBLEM. Therefore another vote to go 2k or XP, i wouldnt go backwards to 98se unless you have no other choice.
Stupid people do stupid things, smart people outsmart each other, then themselves.
Danielm7
Posts: 447
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 8:39 am
Location: PA
Contact:

Post by Danielm7 »

If you already have XP pro go for that by a large margin, winME is total crap and I've never seen it working well for anyone longer than the first month or so.
User avatar
blackhawk
Golden Member
Posts: 1403
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2000 4:58 pm
Location: Ontario Canada

Post by blackhawk »

I know there's a lot of dislike for ME out there but thankfully I didn't know it when I first got it. Had no more problems than with 98se and still have ME on my daughters and m-in-laws machine running just fine.

Whenever I'd ask an ME question, I'd draw a lot of 'rants' without much info other than 'needs a lot of memory' and has more options.


I do like XP better though.
I Am Canadian

DFI Lanparty Ultra-D/AMD Opteron 165(9 x 270) /2x512mb Crucial Ballistix 3200/Nvidia 7900GT/LianLi V1000 + Antec Neo/WinXPpro/ Western Digital JDKS 250gb x 2/LG 16X Multidrive/Dell 1907FP

Asus A8N-E/AMD 64 3500+(11 x 255)/2x512 Corsair XMS 3200/Antec Sonata/ATI X800XL/WinXP/Maxtor 10 300gb x 2/LG 16X Multidrive/Dell FPW2005

Heat 219-0-0
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 33161
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Well I'm an inadvertant ME user for now. The second hand lappy I got on a trade comes with ME.

I started downloading all the drivers, patches and BIOS updates required for Win2K and began to realize that I really didn't want to screw with it right now - I just don't have the time.

Besides, these Compaq laptops get finicky whenever you try to set them up anyway but how the factory set them up, and I don't feel like having stability issues when I go to Miami next month for a week and a half.

So I ran the the Recovery CD and put everything back the way it was from the factory, then proceeded to lobotomize WinME :) Once you turn all the BLOAT crap off it's okay.

Disabled System Restore (I put 2 partitions on it and I Ghost Image my boot partition regularly).

Disabled just about all the "idiot proofing" background apps (and gained a good 15% resources).

Uninstalled PnP Networking (bloat & serious security risk).
---
“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez

Image
Post Reply