Is Windows ME more stable than Windows 98?

[Jabster]

I currently have Windows 98 (First edition) but have a few stability problems with games. Would my system be more stable if I upgrade to Windows Me.

T-Bird 700
KTV7-RAID
128 MB Ram
TNT2 Ultra 32MB

 

[Delusion2001]

i may be wrong on this, and probably will be scorned by fellow anandtech people. lol

i have heard (from my bro) that winMe is more stable than win98. HOWEVER, winMe is a real good resource hogger, so if you don't have a fast rig, then you'll have problems

BUT, winMe, as i have heard from anandtech people, has many problems in it, and most people prefer Win98SE over WinMe

BTW, winMe (so i heard) is closer to WinNT than win98. But i dont' konw if that is correct or not (DON'T send any hate mails guys!! lol)

i'd recommened win98SE and if that doesn't work, try Winme. but wait for more replies, lol

 

[prodigy]

I second the 98SE recommendation.

 

[duragezic]

I'm not really sure about stability. It was hardly any different than SE to me, but then again I only had it for a couple days then put win98se back on.

Do you know if the stability of the games is the fault of the OS or maybe you need to upgrade drivers or something.

If you could just borrow ME from a friend or something to try it out then that'd be great. If the stability wasn't changed then I'd go back to win98se if ya can get that. IMO, ME isn't really that bad, just I find nothing better about it than win98se. Mostly it's a bunch of new crap that I don't need.

 

[Sunner]

I've tried ME on a whole bunch of rigs, sucked on all of them.
Im no freind of any 9x, but ME is by far the worst piece of crap yet from Redmond.

If you have to go 9x, go with one of the 98's, if you dont NEED 9x, go Win2K.

 

[ss284]

I have Win Me installed, and have had it for the past 3 months.

first thing, Its as stable, if not more than win98 se Assuming your hardware is Top notch namebrand reliable stuff.
otherwise WinMe is like a woman, complains aobut every little thing.

win Me is Win 98 SE minus DOS, No autoexe or msdos.sys there is a dosprompt though. It looks like win2k, but its nothing like it underneath. Speed is the same, some and there are some nifty features. System restore is really anooying though.
there isnt Much difference, I would reccomend WinME, because the thing boots damn fast, in about 25 secconds.


-Steve

 

[TheVrolok]

I'm a bigger fan of 98 than of ME. Of the experiences I've had with ME 9/10 are bad. To me it seems to be bloatware and very unstable. Also, I don't like how they tried to kill poor old DOS. I'd go with 98, SE if you can manage it. BTW, I'm even a bigger fan of 2k

 

[Waterhouse]

Second that on Win 2K. As to the original question, I find ME to be definitely more stable than 98, even SE. This maybe a result of simply putting on all fresh system files. With 98 I kept adding MS's "updates". After a while my machine was crippled - rebooting several times a day. And of course every app has it own version of the system dlls. Over time they don't play togther anymore. Call it software rot!

My wife's Vaio PII portable didn't like ME - bad drivers or something. It would lock up after just a few minutes of running. Boy was she pissed! I used the "uninstall" feature and it worked flawlessly to get the machine back to working fine with SE. She doesn't pile it up with games and random downloads, and it works just fine, stable as a rock on SE.

 

[BFG10K]

Honestly? I can't really say which is more stable. But I do know that Windows 98 SE runs faster and uses less resources.

 

[gtd2000]

I had Win 98 - great - totally stable
I got Win 98 SE - what a disaster - formatted numerous times - could not get a happy system with it
Just upgraded to Win ME for the hell of it - I'm very happy indeed

They didn't call Windows 98 "SE" for nothing! In my case it did not mean "Second Edition" - it meant "SUCKING EDITION"

 

[Jabster]

I think I'll stick with Windows 98. I like the dos prompt and can't imagine going without it.

Can one still upgrade to second edition? I heard that you could download most of the components, is that true?

 

[Byte]

I find Windows 98 rock stable even after 90 gigs of crap (except after i installed VB studio, ouch crash every 5 minutes)
I find Windwos 98SE a piece of crap
Windows ME i have been experimenting with for a while on my second system and it's quite stable, but seems a tad bit slower. It hasn't really crashed on me and installing hardware is very easy. I still don't trust it though for some reason. But my ME experiences are very good (the restore is amazing). I guess it depends on a number of million combinations of hardware/software. So i guess you should try ME first and if you like it stick with it, if no go to 98.

 

[javathehut]

IN my opinion, they are both crappy. Both are relatively unstable. DOn't expect your system to be more stable.

 

[Quickfingerz]

What's better windows98 first edition or second edition?

 

[ss284]

I would think SE, as it has the patches and updated drivers.
-Steve

 

[Shagga]

WinME has been stable for me, possibly the same as Win98SE. If you maintain your drivers/software correctly you will/should have no problems with either OS IMO.

 

[ss284]

Which is nearly impossible


-Steve

 

[Helpless]

When ME first hit the shelves, I bought it, installed it, uninstalled it a few days later, as I had constant lockups. Now, however, after formatting the hard drive and doing a clean install, it hasn't locked-up since (not that I can remember)....one thing I did was to disable the automatic restore option, though...friend did the same and said he, too, has had no problems.

 

[gtd2000]

I got my first BSOD with Win ME last night - but a winzip file froze the system (cheat level file for Project IGI) I don't think ME was to blame - I think the file was the culprit though.
I've read now that there are no cheats for IGI yet.....

 

[WhiteWonder]

to tell you the truth, i havn't really noticed to much of a diffrence between the two, and i play alot of games.