Windows ME questions

[Maximilian]

I found a cd containing as somone amusingly put it "that rock of stability known as windows ME" and im gonna install it and play some retro games!

What i wanna know is:

1. Is there an automatic update?

2. If so, will it be able to use a USB wireless dongle to connect to the internet? I heard windows 98 SE could, so ME should definately right?

3. Why is 98 SE better than ME? Ive probably asked this before, but what the hell did they do in ME that made it so much worse than 98 SE, surely a fully updated ME is pretty on the level with a fully updated SE?

4. Can anyone forsee any problems with a PII 400 on an abit BE6-II with 512mb ram and a geforce 4 ti 4400? Ill soon find out heh, but might as well ask.

I was gonna just buy 98SE from ebay for £5 or somthing, but theyre all significantly more expensive that that, so i dug this cd up

 

[Maximilian]

Bahh, never mind, it wont recognise the windows me cd. It looks a bit beat up, and i had to clean chocolate off of it before putting it into the drive :frown: Ill go forage for another disk, or just buy 98 from ebay.

 

[jlbenedict]

Oh Soviet.. how dare you
You know where this thread will eventually go

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: jlbenedict
Oh Soviet.. how dare you
You know where this thread will eventually go

Hehe, its not gonna happen, hes tried too many times already, and failed

Anyways, i cant find any other cd, apart from the botched chocolately ME one and this other windows 98 FE (first edition!) one, which is no good as it dosent have the support i need for this belkin wireless dongle. So this retro gaming escapades going nowhere fast until i get 98SE, which will take a while.

 

[jlbenedict]

but on the original topic, which is a good question:

What did Microsoft do to Windows ME that totally fubar'd it compared to 98?

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: jlbenedict
but on the original topic, which is a good question:

What did Microsoft do to Windows ME that totally fubar'd it compared to 98?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Me

There were a few new features such as System Restore that weren't "road tested" and had some kinks in them.

The biggest problem were the tweaks to the driver model. ME would generally accept 98 drivers, but the drivers themselves were usually not fully tested nor fully compatible with ME. The result was an enormous number of freezes, blue screens and performance issues that came to be associated with ME.

 

[Brazen]

I can't tell you what exactly they did, but basically, Windows ME had no more features than Windows 98SE other than some color tweaks and new icons, but for some reason it crashed, hung, had stability problems, way worse than 98SE. I think Microsoft pretty much abandoned support for it right off the bat, other than security updates, since no one wanted to take a step backward from 98SE and upgrade to ME. As such, I doubt a fully patche ME will be "better" than 98SE.

(I wonder how long until the troll shows up?)

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: jlbenedict
but on the original topic, which is a good question:

What did Microsoft do to Windows ME that totally fubar'd it compared to 98?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Me

There were a few new features such as System Restore that weren't "road tested" and had some kinks in them.

The biggest problem were the tweaks to the driver model. ME would generally accept 98 drivers, but the drivers themselves were usually not fully tested nor fully compatible with ME. The result was an enormous number of freezes, blue screens and performance issues that came to be associated with ME.

Hmm, after reading that wiki article im kinda glad that windows ME cd of mine hasent worked.

So at heart its a good OS, as its the same as 98 basically, but uses a different driver model. It couldve been windows 98 TE (third edition) and wouldve been a success if it used the same driver model.

 

[Stumps]

well, this is gunna get interesting now isn't.

Now we what for Link9x to spead his moronic retardedness about

 

[Stumps]

and while I probably cope a flaming for saying this, WinME(although not as good as Win98SE)needs to be setup like Win98SE(order of driver installation affects overall outcome)in order to get a reliable system, I have found the following order of driver installation to be almost flawess(some ATI cards, like Rage128pro's hate it on super7 platforms)

1) Install Win98/ME

2) Install latest DirectX

3) Install IDE driver (if using VIA hardware, the 4in1's work wonders here you can skip the next step)

4) Install AGP GART

5) Install VGA driver

6) Install all other drivers

remember to restart after each step.

I have followed these simple steps (I believe they were documented in the AT articles back in 98/99 for 3DFX installation)for many years and they have never failed me...on either Win98SE or WinME.

I do have a few Super 7 systems in my collection that have 4 year old installations of ME on them and they still run pretty good, however they do have little use these days.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Stumps
well, this is gunna get interesting now isn't.

Now we what for Link9x to spead his moronic retardedness about

It's kinda' interesting, actually. How could somebody HATE Windows 98 without DESPISING Win ME?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Stumps
well, this is gunna get interesting now isn't.

Now we what for Link9x to spead his moronic retardedness about

Although it's amusing over in the 939 thread right now, if he spreads outside of that thread I think that will be the final straw. He is way over due for a permanent ban (not just vacation) since he has demonstrated that he will continue to annoy everyone in the future.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Soviet
3. Why is 98 SE better than ME? Ive probably asked this before, but what the hell did they do in ME that made it so much worse than 98 SE, surely a fully updated ME is pretty on the level with a fully updated SE?

As I understand it..

Win2k was intended to be the merger of consumer and business OSs but was not ready in time and became a replacement for NT 4.0 only. XP actually accomplished this merge. When it became apparent that Win2k was not going to replace Windows 98SE in the consumer space, and that the next replacement (XP) was a long way off, Windows ME was put together in a very rushed timeframe. Although it has feature improvements over 98SE it sorely lacked the polish and stability 98SE had.

IMHO 98SE was the best OS of the 9x line. NOTHING in the 9x line holds a candle to the NT 4.0 and 5.x line. Gaming support in NT 4.0 was pretty weak though.

 

[nweaver]

I could send you my old Windows Server 3.1 disk if you need

 

[Maximilian]

I knew i would be back with problems Ive obtained windows 98 SE

Ok, ill list the problems and then tell you all what i did/tried to do.

1. Windows 98 cd fails to boot. It says "boot from atapi cd - failed" on the old rig, and dosent say a thing on the new one, simply ignores the cd.

2. It wont let me copy all the files from the cd onto a hard drive, it stops at windows44.cab or somthing, theres like 90 files all numbered and i get nothing past number 44. I got a "cannot copy file xxx invalid ms dos function" Why?

3. I tried getting access to the FAT32 drive from what looks like dos, as i used a windows boot disk. This failed as it dosent seem to recognise any drives, it stays at A:, and all i get is invalid path or somthing like that whenever i type D: which is the fat 32 drive. This dosent matter as much until the above two problems are solved.

Specs are:

PII 400
512mb pc100 sdram
geforce 4 ti4400
seagate medalist 4gb - FAT32
western digital cavier 10gb - NTFS (with XP on it)

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: nweaver
I could send you my old Windows Server 3.1 disk if you need

Heh, now *thats* retro Bet it would be easier than trying to figure out how to install 98.

 

[Smilin]

You're in dos. The list of potential problems is pretty darn short.

If you can't get past copying a particular file it is likely a problem with the media.


Depending on what retro games you wish to play, you might be better off just running 98 is a VM on your main gaming rig (the opteron in your sig I assume).

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Smilin
You're in dos. The list of potential problems is pretty darn short.

If you can't get past copying a particular file it is likely a problem with the media.


Depending on what retro games you wish to play, you might be better off just running 98 is a VM on your main gaming rig (the opteron in your sig I assume).

Yea sorry i meant copying the 98 cd to the hard drive from windows xp, as the old rig has XP on it currently.

Does VM = virtual machine and if so does that mean dual boot?