What do you think of Windows ME???

[Spook]

Personally, I installed it last night, and was playing a couple of games. UT and Tribes, UT is noticably slower(10 - 15FPS) and Its allways hard to tell with Tribes.... I haven't run Q3 or 3Dmark2000 yet.. I was expecting a small performance hit but not 10-15FPS... Thats Like 35%...

 

[Vegito]

I been running it for a while (MSDN - retail last month). On my dell notebook, the ATI DVD software overwrote the ME driver and made the dvd playback like crap. Desktop on 6VBA/133 is acceptable. Non are game machines... some driver issue needs to be resolve.

 

[squirrel dog]

I'm going to wait for WindowsYou.

 

[M00T]

I think that i'll stick with win2k

 

[AMB]

I like WinMe

 

[Deeko]

I've got Me dualbooting with 2K. I think 2K is better, but I'm too lazy to find drivers for it for my sound card and my gamepad, so I use 2K unless I need 4 speaker sound or the gamepad. 2K is faster in games than Me, but Me is just as fast as 98 was, at least for me.

 

[Aboroth]

I had millenium preinstalled on my Dell notebook and it would give me Windows Protection errors about every third time I would boot up. After looking through it so I could laugh at how they try to hide most of the control panel from you and other really annoying idiot-proof features I wiped the drive and installed Windows 98SE.

After using the laptop for half an hour or so, a window popped up asking if I want to see the WinME intro movie. It had the choices of "Yes" or "Remind me later". I hate WinME.

 

[Soccerman]

sigh.. here I go again..

First off, there are differences, noticable, and not so noticeable between the 2 OS's, 98 and ME. first off, in order to have similar playing fields, you need to have the same stuff installed (and uninstalled) as you did when you last tested. in other words, get rid of the new bloated stuff that MS included with ME.

Second of all, EVERYONE's experiance with an OS as complicated as windows will be different, becuase the person who installs it, always does one or two things differently then the way you install it.

the types of programs you install, and when yuo install them impacts GREATLY on how well your OS performs.

the way you Treat your computer overall, reflects the way the OS runs. I have a friend with a Celeron 333 compaq computer. he doesn't know Sh!t about computers, and treats his badly (viruses, improper uninstallation, etc etc.). it comes as no surprise that he has to reformat less then every 6 months.

the type of person you are, gets reflected back to you through your OS. An OS as complicated as Windows almost has it's own personality that way.

there are minute differences between everyone's installation, and these minute differences can make large impacts on how the OS works. this is why you really cannot trust anyone's opinion but your own when it comes to how good the OS, becuase no-one can change how you use your OS, and your computer.

 

[Dan]

Very good points, Soccerman.

I ran WinME for nearly 2 months and was underwhelmed. I just don't see where the "enhancements" justify the way it gobbles up resources. My take on WinME is that inexperienced users will find it's wizards and interface very comforting. More knowledgeable users may be quickly frustrated.

As for me, I dumped WinME. I'm running Windows 2000.

 

[Helpless]

...like a waste of $49.95 to me...took Windows 98SE and dressed it up a little with marginal changes, not to mention the lock-ups I get in it from time to time...

 

[obeseotron]

It's not that it is more bloated than win98se that bothers me so much, it's that it doesn't have one single new feature that I like. Win98SE had the quicklaunch bar (best UI invention ever), better defrag, better drivers, ICS, IE5 builtin (I've come to love it), and a few other nice things over win95, which made it worth having. WinMe has an unremovable recovery wizard that rapes you hard drive for space, IE 55 - worthless, and even a nice little warning before I browse my C drive. All this and slightly decreased performance, no format command, and fewer resources available. Count me in...

 

[Erasmus-X]

I don't think Me is a wise upgrade. Too many things taken out, and too many things present that we really don't need. Those warnings that they even put on the C: drive are ridiculous. They even tried to "organize" the Control Panel, where you can only see all of the options if you click "Show all Control Panels." Being user friendly is one thing, but I've come to conclusion that they're trying to create an OS for idiots.

 

[ViRGE]

WinME loses the balence of power/features for geeks. While we(geeks) definately know how to use a CLI, it doesn't mean we want to. Win9x was a good balence of power/features where it'd do the tedius stuff for us, but it wouldn't hold our hand. However, WinME does hold our hands, and as such, it becomes a problem, as we no longer can go to the "edge", where we're accustomed to being. Instead, we're held back, being told that the "edge" is too dangerous for us to be near. So, my reccomendation is blunt, WinME is just Win98 TE, with an overprotective mother. Stick with Win9x, it's the geek's Windows.

 

[Bleep]

I put ME on one of my machines last Friday, this is a machine that only does RC5. I put some other stuff on it to try out ME and my opinion is dont waste your money, as some of the others have stated here they tried to make it idiot proof, it may bo ok for someone that only pushes the mouse around and types on the keyboard but for me it has a lot of vacuum.
Bleep

 

[Soccerman]

speaking of holding your hands, that also happens in 98, where you have to hit that button on the left when you have view as webpage on, in the windows directory, so u can see all the files. naturally, I bypass that by turning off the view as webpage setting..

 

[Skyblazer]

haha this topic is funny, makes me laugh
I am also having the same problems with winme ...win2k or win98 SE will suffice I guess.

- Skyblazer

-------------------------------
- Free Legal Mp3z!
100% Legal Mp3z

 

[bluezebra1098]

Hate to disappoint almost everyone but so far ME is OK with me. For some reason the IE 5.5 with ME is faster than the IE 5.5 I downloaded recently. Someone mentioned earlier that WIN 98SE defrag was faster than ME.. Surely he must've gotten them mixed up. ME's defrag is considerably faster than win 98SE. Used WIN2K for a while and it is great if you can find drivers for all your hardware.
ME was well worth the $49 especially with the free software added by Office Depot.

 

[Isaiah]

I have winMe and it has been great

it is a good upgrade if you can get it free like I did



Isaiah

 

[Isaiah]

dp

 

[jzodda]

Well I love ME.

As far as idiot proof, well its far more idiot proof than 98SE, but as with 98SE you can UN-idiot proof it. First off in folder options set everything to "classic" mode. No more warnings after that going into any folders.


For the system recovery, you can just disable it. Go to system prop, performance, file system, troubleshooting and there you can disable system restore.


I think you guys arent showing much patience Just a little tweaking and WinME becomes a more stable version of Win98 SE. At least thats my opinion. I havent had a crash or BSOD yet and all the drivers for all my hardware went in without a hitch.

I have not started benching though, so thats still a ? in my mind


Also- I forgot to mention that there is a TweakUI made just for WinME that does not expire also. It has made things even easier for me

 

[gtb55447]

Windows ME is way more stable than any of the 9X series. I have had good success with the operating system since its beta testing stages. ME will still crash, and is no way as stable
as 2000, but I can say Microsoft did increase its stability a bit since 98 & 95.

Game wise I noticed no performance increase, but no descrease, and ME supports alot more hardware than 98 & 95 ever did.

 

[Varborta]

I personally dont felt that winme is more stable, and also winme has some software support problem as my dsl installation came to a halt! And, it did ran abit slower but very hard to tell. Other than that it hogs way more rams. Its the best OS for beginner I would say. Also, easier to use.

 

[Fokks]

Throwing in my 2 cents...

I like WinMe a little better than SE. Sounds like alot of you are comparing your tweaked up 98 to your fresh install of ME. Sure ME has some extra junk that comes with it. But like it's been said, so did 98. You just have to put forth a little effort and turn that crap off. Then you have an updated stable 9X that is every bit as fast as SE and then some.
Do a little poking around and you can turn off Restore and Auto-Update, and still leave the good stuff like system file protection running, and have IE 5.5.

Plus for people who put together new systems, or reinstall your own system often with new hardware, I must say it's awesome to be up and running so quickly without having to worry about a million patches that come with every 98 install. (No Direct X, Intel 815, AMD, or boatload of IE patches necessary!)
Suprisingly (for an AOL'er), this guys site has a nice collection of early Windows ME tweaks.

members.aol.com/axcel216/index.htm

I think if you look back, there was alot of this same discussion when SE came out... and I most of you now have SE.

 

[StanTheMan]

Win2K better