Anyone have some Winme Tips they want to post?

[damocles]

To speed it up, make it more stable or whatever. I feel the need to tweak.

cheers

 

[Gunbuster]

Format drive, Put Win2k or Win98SE back on.

 

[Helpless]

...sure glad I had Windows ME save my 98SE configuration....took only 20 minutes to get it off and 98SE back up and running like a champ again Therefore, I second Gunbuster's tweak

 

[damocles]

LOL, i was expecting that.

I am running WinMe dual booted with 2k. So far i like it, but i havent stressed it much yet

 

[Vegito]

Oh yeah, I actually have it running well on a Soyo 6VBA with a SL2W8 on wife's machine. It's good for basic web stuff and typing. But yeah, 98SE all the way or W2k

 

[subman]

Here are some tips which I picked up some time back.... cannot remember where from.... try them at your own risk.



Optimizing Windows Millennium

10 modifications that I have made to Windows ME to gain SIGNIFICANT
increase in speed, performance and security. I have tested these
settings for over a month and haven't encountered any problems.
After applying these tweaks and rebooting the free resources are 99%.

Before you decide you actually want to give up these features for the
extra speed you should read this page.
http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/features/2000/sept00/09-05winme.asp

Keep in mind that the developers and testers for these features never
encountered a worm or trojan or they may have found that PC Health and
Restore will reinstall a trojan because it wants to take you back to the
previous state before your "cleaning" modifications were made. Their
ideas are good but unfortunately they didn't take these problems into
account. It's also obvious they use very fast computers and didn't
notice the deterioration of speed (compared to 9x) with all these
features turned on.

1. Disable System Restore.
Open Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab -> File System - >
Troubleshooting area -> Disable System Restore
(While you are in this window click on the Floppy Disk tab and uncheck the
box so the system doesn't check for a NEW floppy drive every time it
starts.)
~~
2. Uninstall Pc Health.
Start / Run "\windows\pchealth\support\pchsetup /uninstall"
~~
3. Turn off Automatic Updating. (This will hog your modem for 30
mins every day when you first go on line if you don't turn it off.)
Start / Settings / Taskbar / Advanced
then check Expand Control Panel and close and go to
Start / Settings / Control Panel / Automatic Updates and turn OFF
Automatic Updating
~~
4. Use ram memory rather than the swap file. (The system needs OVER 64
megs of ram.)
Start / Search / Files type and enter: "system.ini" then click on it
and open it in Notepad and add this line after [386Enh] (without quotes)
"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
~~
5. Set file system to cache about 20 times higher than its default
setting. Copy and paste these lines to Notepad and name the file
MaxCached.reg then click on MaxCached.reg from Windows Explorer and say
Yes you want to add that information to your registry. (You must
set Notepad to "all files" when you save it or it will save as text.)

-------------------------------- copy
below ----------------------------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS
Templates]
@="Max Cache"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS
Templates\Max Cache]
@="Max Cache"
"NameCache"=hex:00,18,00,00
"PathCache"=hex:80,00,00,00
------------------------------- to
above ------------------------------------
~~
6. Disable these settings in the start menu.
Start / Run type and enter: "Msconfig"
then click on Startup and UNCHECK PcHealth, StateMgr, SchedulingAgent
and Taskmon Then allow the system to reboot so all these changes will
take effect.
~~
7. Run Windows Explorer and click on Tools / Folder Options / View and
select "Show hidden files and folders" then browse the c: drive and
delete the _Restore folder. Hold your shift key so it doesn't move it
to the recycle bin while you press del. This folder can have hundreds of
megs of temp files if you have been running ME for a while with the
system Restore and PC Health on. If you get an error message saying
there is a sharing violation you haven't successfully turned off Pc
Health and Restore. The _Restore folder should NOT appears again in the
future (unless you update a key Microsoft program like IE).
~~
8. See if anything unnecessary is running all the time.
Press CTRL + ALT + DEl at the same time, after you have first booted
up and see what programs are loaded. You may find several programs running
that don't need to run all the time. Most of them, if actually needed, can
be loaded from the Start / Programs menu.
~~
9. Don't let windows run HTA, SHS and VBS Script automatically.
Those file associations allow viruses to infect your system. Open
Windows Explorer and click Tools / Folder Options / File Types and
delete HTA, SHS and VBSscript. It is very unlikely a normal PC user
would need those file associations turned on.
~~
10. Disable "Automatic check for Windows Explorer updates"
From the IE "Tools" menu click on "Internet Options" then go to
"Advanced" and uncheck the 4th box.


EVERY week back up modified files, defrag the system and update the
definitions and scan the whole system with your favorite anti-viral
program. Run Ad-Aware to fight the spying that a least 100 programs are
known to do. (I do this mainly to save the baud width wasted by the data
and banner ads that are passing back and forth.)

I also manually load ZoneAlarm Pro. from time to time to monitor all
programs and report everything that tries to access the internet. I don't
like programs "calling home" without my permission.

Note: Win ME does not use c:\command.com or win.com. I have found that
deleting these files - that are NECESSARY for Win 9x - does not make a
difference for ME.

New cool feature I found in Win ME: When in DOS mode you can recall the
past commands you have run from the dos prompt by pressing the up arrow
key or page up.

 

[fkloster]

Thanks subman. Copy & pasted that work...

 

[Bryan]

WinME is the only OS I've ever seen crash while I was reading a web page. Not even scrolling! Only Explorer and Systray were running besides IE. No system restore or PC Health. :Q

 

[Helpless]

I feel your pain, in regards to stationary crashes! ...I also got a ton of crashes that said my elsa.hlp file created an internal error in blah, blah, blah....Never had help files crash me in 98SE . I was getting like 5 crashes a session, so went back to Windows 98SE, which I haven't had to reboot since

 

[damocles]

cheers subman, did most of that stuff and seems to be working well.

 

[DeathroweR]

- Subman - you're the best.

- = = -

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

^^

Excellent guide.

 

[denon]

I just took win me off my system and put win2k back on it tonight. Win2k > Win98se > Win Me

 

[AMB]

Thanks subman#

More Win Me Tips

 

[LiekOMG]

I've been running WinME for a little over amonth now, and I have yet to have the OS crash on me (well, it did once, but that was my fault). I like it better than 98 because it boots up so quickly (i restart like 20 times a day, all that time adds up), and not having to apply patch after patch to 98 because its so outdated sure is helpful. My only complaint is that it seems to suck up system resources really fast, although i'm not entirely sure that winMe's fault, because i'm using the cursed winPPPoE crap. Oh yeah, and ICQ2000a sucks up like 10% resources when you load it up too! ARG. Other than that, it feels a lot more responsive than 98, and using the web (especially DLing) seems faster too.

 

[Noriaki]

You get a win98SE boot disk and then type format C: /u
(you of course can't do this with WinME because it's much to close to allowing the user control of their own system)
After that you get a Win98SE CD and install that.

Better yet, Win2000.
WinME is awful...don't give in to the madness.

 

[Rigoletto]

WinME is lovely I don't know what you're all complaining about. Even my lousy SIII card is working now at 37FPS in QuakeIII in 800x600 16bit colour. The OS is a very welcome improvement on the 9x.

 

[ToBeMe]

Seems to me a lot of people "tried" WinME and just dismissed it for one reason or another without even trying to aclimate themselves to it. I agree that (at least in my instance) WinME does seem to be a lot more stable, has much better driver support, does not require a multitude of patching, boots MUCH faster, and is just in general a freindlier OS. No, it doesn't give DOS support anything like 98 and before....but neither does 2K (which I also use) and neither will any upcoming WinOS's! Still, DOS is not impossible to get to, so that's no big thing. (with disc) I have expierienced no crahsing like in 98SE or before, and if you want to free up resources, just disable what you don't want and ME runs right with 98SE! If people think ME is sobad because of lack of DOS support etc., all I can say is wait until Whistler and so on.....I am beta testing Whistler on another system and if you don't like ME but like 2K look out, it's like a merger of the two....in fact, it is.....with a lot of other features added! JMHO Have A Nice Day

 

[damocles]

The only problem i am currently having with ME after a few days is ICQ. It constantly freezes/crashes. I will reinstall it, hopefully this fixes it

 

[Mday]

i agree with gunbuster =)

 

[Mday]

if you want to keep winme, wait until "they" release winme specific proggies, that is, winme is listed in the supported OSes...