John-
I never said that I couldn't make ME run fine. What I'm going to do is repost part of what I said and I want you to read it carefully, I'm guessing you never bothered to read my whole post...
We dont have it in for you because you run it, and we dont think that it's impossible to run correctly. We are mearly stating the FACT that it has many problems that 2K and XP do not and the problems that it does have are often harder to fix than problems on 2K and XP. From a support standpoint ME is a major liability, this is why we only run 2K and XP.
-Spy
Technically it wouldnt be a liability for NFS4 since they can bill by the hour. Therefore for them it would be a revenue producer.
However for myself as we are a "cost center" ME is nothing but a liability.
-Spy
However for myself as we are a "cost center" ME is nothing but a liability.
-Spy
The point to all this is not that we can't make it work reliably, it simply isn't worth the time & effort required when 2K/XP are comparitively bullet-proof without the TLC required to make any of the 9X kernels last more than a few months of heavy use.
You, as a user, may have the time to waste on such things. But multiply that time by 1000+ machines & suddenly you're talking a major chore.
And that's before you even start looking at essential features like file security.
Viper GTS
John-
Let me give you a good example of what I mean by stability.
In Windows 9.x when you get a GPF (General Protection Fault - an error that occurs when 2 programs try to occupy the same space in memory) you get the BSD (Blue Screen of Death) and you have no option except to reboot.
In Windows 2K and XP if you get a GPF (which happens less often, however does still happen) the application that tried to grab more memory than allowed gets closed and you get a dialog box telling you that you just had a GPF, you can even restart the application without shutting down your computer or loosing any of your work in other applications.
This is just one example.
-Spy
Let me give you a good example of what I mean by stability.
In Windows 9.x when you get a GPF (General Protection Fault - an error that occurs when 2 programs try to occupy the same space in memory) you get the BSD (Blue Screen of Death) and you have no option except to reboot.
In Windows 2K and XP if you get a GPF (which happens less often, however does still happen) the application that tried to grab more memory than allowed gets closed and you get a dialog box telling you that you just had a GPF, you can even restart the application without shutting down your computer or loosing any of your work in other applications.
This is just one example.
-Spy
First off any comparison between 9x/Me and NT/2K/XP is a ridiculous one. Everybody here knows which set of OSes is better. But ME can only be fairly compared to 98 or 95.
ME compared to 98 sucks bad. My machine came pre-installed with ME (it was a Dell), and I thought "okay let's give this a try, maybe it does something better than 98." It wasn't more than 2 days later that I had my Win98 install disc in hand installing Win98. The only thing I liked about ME was the lightning fast boot-up (which I believe Win XP has?).
I have a dual boot Win2k/Win98 system since Win2k refuses to run some of my games (this also must be problem with those of you who are system builders - at least a reasonable percentage of people expect their computer to run games or educational software etc.). I remember when I first used Win98, I had to tweak it forever to get it to run stable, but when it did it was almost perfect (to the point that when I tried Win2k the first time I was irritated by the lower 'responsiveness' and I continued to use Win98 primarily). I'm sure that Win ME can do the same with massive amounts of tweaking, but my time is worth a lot more to me now than it was then. I know how to get Win98 to snuff and I don't want to deal with another whole new learning curve on WinME and all it's irritating 'features'.
Recently when I did a clean reinstall of both OSes (Win2k and Win98), I was reminded of what a pain in the a$$ Win98 really is. With Win2k you can reinstall, load your programs, load/update your drivers and you are ready to go. With Win98 you have coax the system to get everything to work, restart a thousand times, test mulitple driver variations, and finally optimize to get it to run stable and fast. But it's worth it for the games, which run faster even if they work in Win2K.
Now that we have WinXP we can the best of both worlds: stability of NT/2K and compatibility of 98/ME. i haven't tried it so I am not speaking from first hand experience.
ME compared to 98 sucks bad. My machine came pre-installed with ME (it was a Dell), and I thought "okay let's give this a try, maybe it does something better than 98." It wasn't more than 2 days later that I had my Win98 install disc in hand installing Win98. The only thing I liked about ME was the lightning fast boot-up (which I believe Win XP has?).
I have a dual boot Win2k/Win98 system since Win2k refuses to run some of my games (this also must be problem with those of you who are system builders - at least a reasonable percentage of people expect their computer to run games or educational software etc.). I remember when I first used Win98, I had to tweak it forever to get it to run stable, but when it did it was almost perfect (to the point that when I tried Win2k the first time I was irritated by the lower 'responsiveness' and I continued to use Win98 primarily). I'm sure that Win ME can do the same with massive amounts of tweaking, but my time is worth a lot more to me now than it was then. I know how to get Win98 to snuff and I don't want to deal with another whole new learning curve on WinME and all it's irritating 'features'.
Recently when I did a clean reinstall of both OSes (Win2k and Win98), I was reminded of what a pain in the a$$ Win98 really is. With Win2k you can reinstall, load your programs, load/update your drivers and you are ready to go. With Win98 you have coax the system to get everything to work, restart a thousand times, test mulitple driver variations, and finally optimize to get it to run stable and fast. But it's worth it for the games, which run faster even if they work in Win2K.
Now that we have WinXP we can the best of both worlds: stability of NT/2K and compatibility of 98/ME. i haven't tried it so I am not speaking from first hand experience.
Win ME was simply the last milking at the teat of the Win 9x cash cow. It offered nothing compelling. Most people disabled its best features (can you say "system restore"? I knew you could).
The beta testers early on reporting more problems than any previous Windows release. MS went ahead anyway since nothing was gonna make money for them for the time period in question. And after the fact they didn't bother to fully patch ME. It's the bastard child of MS OSes.
So many reviewers, analysts and forum members bashed ME you would think people would have avoided it like saurkraut. But, since ME was forcibly preinstalled on so many machines (MS is a benevolent monopoly, ain't she), support personnel sure got a wet and smelly surprise! The world is till recovering.
The beta testers early on reporting more problems than any previous Windows release. MS went ahead anyway since nothing was gonna make money for them for the time period in question. And after the fact they didn't bother to fully patch ME. It's the bastard child of MS OSes.
So many reviewers, analysts and forum members bashed ME you would think people would have avoided it like saurkraut. But, since ME was forcibly preinstalled on so many machines (MS is a benevolent monopoly, ain't she), support personnel sure got a wet and smelly surprise! The world is till recovering.
Or try recompiling an OS several times, after weeks of uptime. Not to mention general use type stuff like serving web content, ssh shells, IRC, file serving, build box, etc.
KM....,
><FONT size=1>I sure hope you're kidding. <
Hope will get you no-where. Action is what counts.
</FONT>
><FONT size=1>I sure hope you're kidding. <
Hope will get you no-where. Action is what counts.
</FONT>
Vipe...
><FONT size=1>The point to all this is not that we <I>can't</I> make it work reliably, it simply isn't worth the time & effort required when 2K/XP are comparitively bullet-proof without the TLC required to make any of the 9X kernels last more than a few months of heavy use. <<<
The time it took to get ME to run perfectly was the time it took me to install it. Period. What were you saying???
</FONT>
><FONT size=1>The point to all this is not that we <I>can't</I> make it work reliably, it simply isn't worth the time & effort required when 2K/XP are comparitively bullet-proof without the TLC required to make any of the 9X kernels last more than a few months of heavy use. <<<
The time it took to get ME to run perfectly was the time it took me to install it. Period. What were you saying???
</FONT>
1. You have been here long enough to know that these really crappy HTML tags will not work. They make you look almost as rediculous as your posts. Please stop using them!
2. Try doing some of the work mentioned earlier on one of your DOS machine. See how well it works.
Spy......
><FONT size=1>In Windows 9.x when you get a GPF (General Protection Fault - an error that occurs when 2 programs try to occupy the same space in memory) you get the BSD (Blue Screen of Death) and you have no option except to reboot. <
Never had a GPF in ME. Use to get them once in a while with Win95 though. Never got a BSD in ME or XP Pro.
I wonder what some of you are doing to screw up any Windows installation? Must be user error or most of you would not be having so many problems. I suspect 98% is user error. Maybe some of you would be better off with installing Linsux. (g)
</FONT>
><FONT size=1>In Windows 9.x when you get a GPF (General Protection Fault - an error that occurs when 2 programs try to occupy the same space in memory) you get the BSD (Blue Screen of Death) and you have no option except to reboot. <
Never had a GPF in ME. Use to get them once in a while with Win95 though. Never got a BSD in ME or XP Pro.
I wonder what some of you are doing to screw up any Windows installation? Must be user error or most of you would not be having so many problems. I suspect 98% is user error. Maybe some of you would be better off with installing Linsux. (g)
</FONT>
Most of the problems could be attributed to crappy hardware IF WinME was a modern OS. Since is it basically a bad hack of a 20+ year old OS, its time to move on.
EDIT: Also, mispelling Linux as Linsux is almost as stupid as spelling MS as M$, and definitely stupider than these HTML tags you insist on polluting your posts with.
ME is complete and utter trash. It's not a robust OS, and it's not network friendly. The security is laughable.
If you have ME on your network and you have to deal with it, then fine.
If you have ME on your network b/c you chose to install it, you're a moron.
sxr7171
I must disagree with your comapison of Me and 98, at least in my particular case. I could never get 98 stable, tons of BSOD's, re-installs, etc. Me was a lot more stable for me from the get go, however I did have problems with programs crashing sometimes. Usually I didn't need to re-boot though, unless I did get a blue screen. Anyway, I stumbled across a fix one day while looking on some tweaking site (can't remember where, if i find the place I'll post it) that fixed about 90% of the problems. It seems that the Me installation leaves out some important .vxd files for various things, and instead relies on one generic .vxd for many different things. The tweak told you which .cab files to look in on the install disk and where to put the files. After doing so I could run for weeks without a re-boot, less for installs/un-installs of software or hardware. I ran Me for almost 3 years and only re-installed 1 time.
But again I readily admit, no windows OS compares to XP or 2000. They are far, far superior to any 3.x or 9x windows system.
Edit: Found the tweak here.
I must disagree with your comapison of Me and 98, at least in my particular case. I could never get 98 stable, tons of BSOD's, re-installs, etc. Me was a lot more stable for me from the get go, however I did have problems with programs crashing sometimes. Usually I didn't need to re-boot though, unless I did get a blue screen. Anyway, I stumbled across a fix one day while looking on some tweaking site (can't remember where, if i find the place I'll post it) that fixed about 90% of the problems. It seems that the Me installation leaves out some important .vxd files for various things, and instead relies on one generic .vxd for many different things. The tweak told you which .cab files to look in on the install disk and where to put the files. After doing so I could run for weeks without a re-boot, less for installs/un-installs of software or hardware. I ran Me for almost 3 years and only re-installed 1 time.
But again I readily admit, no windows OS compares to XP or 2000. They are far, far superior to any 3.x or 9x windows system.
Edit: Found the tweak here.
Maybe I didn't give ME enough of a chance, I got annoyed with it quickly and then got rid of it. I felt that it was less responsive as well (maybe because of the system restore feature). But you said that games run faster on WinME than Win98, maybe I should give it one more chance. Since you also use WinXP Pro, do games run faster or slower on it compared to WinME?
Action, yes....
.....Such as taking action to use OSs that can handle the workload you give them...
John, the system restore disk that came with your Compaq Presario does not count as installing Windows. You are merely imaging the drive with a pre-configured OS.
If you are installing Windows ME on all new hardware that you assembled it generally takes more work because you need to get drivers for all your hardware to make everything run correctly. Whereas with Windows XP most every machine will run it as you suggest, by "just installing it".
I hope you are not typing that in yourself, but rather are using some program and pasting it into your message. If that's the case please remove it as it makes your posts hard to read. If you are looking to have basic HTML functionality in the forums here please review the special symbols page.
In regards to a GPF (and other) crashes I do still sometimes see them. When you are troubleshooting as much hardware as we do you tend to run into bad or incompatible hardware (or drivers for that hardware) from time to time.
I do, I run Mandrake 8.2 at home (as well as XP and 2K). At my office however we run a Windows network. And like N0cMonkey said, it's spelled "Linux".
Lastly John, if you?re feeling threatened just leave. We all hate to see these forums turn into someplace to call names. If you had good solid input as to the topic of "What was Microsoft thinking with Windows ME" please let us know, but based upon your technical knowledge and experience I get the impression that your a 17 year old kid who doesn?t want to hear it from anyone else and just wants to call me names if I try and set you strait. There are plenty of teen chats where others will think you have technical knowledge because you can run Windows ME, they also probably will have more interesting name calling sessions than you will see here.
-Spy
Spy,
---
<FONT size=1>John, the system restore disk that came with your Compaq Presario does not count as installing Windows. ---
I have never bought or owned any Compaq computer. The rest of your note is wrong due to your wrong assumptions.
</FONT>
---
<FONT size=1>John, the system restore disk that came with your Compaq Presario does not count as installing Windows. ---
I have never bought or owned any Compaq computer. The rest of your note is wrong due to your wrong assumptions.
</FONT>
OK john, just a few points I'd like to make in order to put the rest of the nails in the ME coffin.
1) Dell, Compaq and Gateway all three demanded, and recieved, permission from MS to package 98se with their new systems about 6 months before XP came out due to the sheer volume of calls that they were recieving about problems with Windows ME. I'm not going to spend the time finding some proof on the internet right now, I will only say that when I heard about this I checked and, sure enough, all three of them were shipping their top-of-the-line systems with Win98se. Hmmm, seems like there WAS some type of problem.
2) I had a personal experience with ME. My parents bought a new P4 1.4 almost 2 years ago (right around christmas time) from Dell that (at the time) came with ME. In three days, the system crashed. I hadn't installed anything on the system yet, not even upgrades. All I was doing was surfing the internet and relishing in the speed with which it loaded (it did have one benefit). After forcing Dell to send me Win98se, set out to find out what was wrong before the software got there. The problem was, I couldn't even RUN scandisk. But, after burning the midnight oil (along with the 1a.m. oil, the 2a.m. oil, etc.), I did manage to get back into ME. If you know anything about troubleshooting a computer, you know that scandisk makes all the fragments it finds into files on the system drive called filexxx.chk. I had almost 800 of them. But that's not surprising since I found the root of the problem, ME had placed two FATs (file allocation tables) on the hard drive. Hell, even Win2k wouldn't know what to do with that.
3) There are things that make a 2k/XP comparison simply ridiculous, such as: NTFS, improved security, the ability to run longer without a restart (even MS wouldn't tell you otherwise), the feature mentioned above that now works around BSODs, and, most importantly, Win ME, like 98 and 98se, has the ability to write to any part of a disk, while NT, 2k, and XP made the most important system areas off-limits. I suppose you're going to tell me now that writing to the system areas would be the program's fault and not the OS? Right, and it's the theif's fault that I left the back door unlocked.
4) Remember the point we're trying to make. It's not that it is absolutely impossible to install ME and have it run forever and never BSOD, just that it's more unlikely with ME than with any OS before it or after it (so far at least). Nobody's saying that you didn't get lucky, just that most people won't If you're denying that the experiences of all of the people in these forums is true then you're truely naive. The ENTIRE COMPUTING COMMUNITY - save one or two here and there that are like you - have closed the case on Win ME and deemed it a sub-par OS. It was rushed through production (which ANY techie at MS will confirm) and was the SOLE REASON that XP was looked over carefully before being released. Ultimately that was unneccessary as it was built on a fundamentally better backbone, but it WAS delayed (you'll have no problem finding proof as that was fairly big news at the time). Oh, but y'know, MS is only a company, you know better, right?
5) If you're telling us that we're incompetent, and yet think that you're the man, explain this: how is it that you can say that you're "making those systems run perfectly" when in reality you've said that you've never "made" anything. Your claim is that you've never had problems since first installing the OS. If that's true, then you should hope that your systems don't ever "mess up" as you haven't proven in any fashion that you have the slightest idea of how to fix them.
Case closed. Please don't further embarrass yourself by continuing this arguement. I'm a college debate national champion and I'd be happy to continue this discussion elsewhere. Leave these good people alone. You can find me on IRC with the same nick.
Sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here. - Jack Nicholson "As Good As It Gets"
1) Dell, Compaq and Gateway all three demanded, and recieved, permission from MS to package 98se with their new systems about 6 months before XP came out due to the sheer volume of calls that they were recieving about problems with Windows ME. I'm not going to spend the time finding some proof on the internet right now, I will only say that when I heard about this I checked and, sure enough, all three of them were shipping their top-of-the-line systems with Win98se. Hmmm, seems like there WAS some type of problem.
2) I had a personal experience with ME. My parents bought a new P4 1.4 almost 2 years ago (right around christmas time) from Dell that (at the time) came with ME. In three days, the system crashed. I hadn't installed anything on the system yet, not even upgrades. All I was doing was surfing the internet and relishing in the speed with which it loaded (it did have one benefit). After forcing Dell to send me Win98se, set out to find out what was wrong before the software got there. The problem was, I couldn't even RUN scandisk. But, after burning the midnight oil (along with the 1a.m. oil, the 2a.m. oil, etc.), I did manage to get back into ME. If you know anything about troubleshooting a computer, you know that scandisk makes all the fragments it finds into files on the system drive called filexxx.chk. I had almost 800 of them. But that's not surprising since I found the root of the problem, ME had placed two FATs (file allocation tables) on the hard drive. Hell, even Win2k wouldn't know what to do with that.
3) There are things that make a 2k/XP comparison simply ridiculous, such as: NTFS, improved security, the ability to run longer without a restart (even MS wouldn't tell you otherwise), the feature mentioned above that now works around BSODs, and, most importantly, Win ME, like 98 and 98se, has the ability to write to any part of a disk, while NT, 2k, and XP made the most important system areas off-limits. I suppose you're going to tell me now that writing to the system areas would be the program's fault and not the OS? Right, and it's the theif's fault that I left the back door unlocked.
4) Remember the point we're trying to make. It's not that it is absolutely impossible to install ME and have it run forever and never BSOD, just that it's more unlikely with ME than with any OS before it or after it (so far at least). Nobody's saying that you didn't get lucky, just that most people won't If you're denying that the experiences of all of the people in these forums is true then you're truely naive. The ENTIRE COMPUTING COMMUNITY - save one or two here and there that are like you - have closed the case on Win ME and deemed it a sub-par OS. It was rushed through production (which ANY techie at MS will confirm) and was the SOLE REASON that XP was looked over carefully before being released. Ultimately that was unneccessary as it was built on a fundamentally better backbone, but it WAS delayed (you'll have no problem finding proof as that was fairly big news at the time). Oh, but y'know, MS is only a company, you know better, right?
5) If you're telling us that we're incompetent, and yet think that you're the man, explain this: how is it that you can say that you're "making those systems run perfectly" when in reality you've said that you've never "made" anything. Your claim is that you've never had problems since first installing the OS. If that's true, then you should hope that your systems don't ever "mess up" as you haven't proven in any fashion that you have the slightest idea of how to fix them.
Case closed. Please don't further embarrass yourself by continuing this arguement. I'm a college debate national champion and I'd be happy to continue this discussion elsewhere. Leave these good people alone. You can find me on IRC with the same nick.
Sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here. - Jack Nicholson "As Good As It Gets"
Imature,
><FONT size=1> Dell, Compaq and Gateway all three demanded, and recieved, permission from MS to package 98se <
Never in my life have I owned any one of those computers you listed. Sorry, better luck next time.
I have PAID FOR CDs for all my Windows OS and programs. I installed them all myself.
</FONT>
><FONT size=1> Dell, Compaq and Gateway all three demanded, and recieved, permission from MS to package 98se <
Never in my life have I owned any one of those computers you listed. Sorry, better luck next time.
I have PAID FOR CDs for all my Windows OS and programs. I installed them all myself.
</FONT>
I'm sorry I underestimated your stupidity. The argument had nothing to do with the fact that those specific vendors were having problems. The point is that when the 3 biggest computer vendors are having that many problems with that particular OS (never before have they done this), it is clear that it is the OSs fault. Basically, when the call volume for problems increases dramatically enough (statistically, it's called special cause variation), they pinpoint the problem and figure out how to remedy the situation. Not only did Dell come up with that explanation, but so did Compaq and Gateway. Plus, those three competing companies saw it as a significant enough problem that they actually cooperated in order to get what they needed.
Interestingly enough, you didn't bother to mention the other 4 points, especially number 5....
Interestingly enough, you didn't bother to mention the other 4 points, especially number 5....
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