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gamefreak
I don't have a monopoly, I'm just competitive
Joined: Dec 31, 2006
Age: 18
Posts: 1202
Location: Spring Hill, Florida
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 Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:51 pm Post subject: Is Windows Me any good |
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My current OS on my dinosaur of a computer has been 2000 Pro along with Damn Small
Linux. My computer is a 466Mhz Celeron w/ 192 Mb of memory. 2000 and linux runs pretty
fast and don`t give me any errors. |
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cerulean
Butterfly
Joined: Jun 24, 2007
Posts: 15
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:05 pm Post subject: Re: Is Windows Me any good |
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| gamefreak wrote: | My current OS on my dinosaur of a computer has been 2000 Pro along with Damn Small
Linux. My computer is a 466Mhz Celeron w/ 192 Mb of memory. 2000 and linux runs pretty
fast and don`t give me any errors. |
Egads, no. WinMe was the last gasp of the 9x line. It's a fragile, technological mess that isn't worth bothering with. Since you have 2000, stick with that. |
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dumbgenius
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 09, 2007
Posts: 1947
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:36 am Post subject: |
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Due to it's lack of significant driver support, some consider it to be worse than the previous 9x OSes.
EDIT: The best low resource consuming 9x OS is Win98SE. Microsoft tried to confuse people by giving it a letter name instead of the number scheme used in previous 9x OSes. I guess they thought it would help sell more copies.
Example: 2000 and ME are switched and don't fit the pattern.
9x
95, 98, ME
NT
2000, XP, Vista
Last edited by dumbgenius on Sun Jul 22, 2007 1:25 am; edited 1 time in total |
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gwenevyn
asdf forever
Joined: May 07, 2007
Posts: 6179
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:44 am Post subject: |
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| My experience with Windows ME was quite negative. Wouldn't recommend it. |
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Fogman
Econo-class Iconoclast
Joined: Jun 20, 2005
Age: 41
Posts: 2071
Location: SC, USA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:06 am Post subject: |
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| gwenevyn wrote: | | My experience with Windows ME was quite negative. Wouldn't recommend it. |
I agree.... the ME stands for Malicious Engineering.
Windows 2000, on the other hand is the predecessor of WinXP Professional, and was vastly improved over NT 4.
_________________
"Blessed are the Distinctly Alien, for they shall inherit the Earth." -- Genesis P. Orridge |
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edal
Phoenix
Joined: Jul 05, 2007
Posts: 759
Location: Gyor, Hungary
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 11:17 am Post subject: |
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Is Windows Me any good?
No, avoid it like the plague, do not touch it even with a ten foot pole, desist any inclination to try this OS, stay away from it like it was a dog with fleas, recoil in horror lest it touch thy hard drive, keep clear in case it reduces your computer to slag, and if all else fails...............
Run away and hide.
Ed Almos |
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Hendikins
Blue Jay
Joined: Jun 25, 2007
Posts: 97
Location: 34°00'S, 150°52'E
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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Whip me, beat me, just don't Windows Me!
_________________
Michael Hendy
Mozilla PluginDoc - http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/
Hendikins - The Lurking Wolfox - Art by MistyStriker/Bingo |
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gamefreak
I don't have a monopoly, I'm just competitive
Joined: Dec 31, 2006
Age: 18
Posts: 1202
Location: Spring Hill, Florida
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| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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I have been running 2000 on my computer as long as i had it. I never had a problem with my computer accept for 2 viruses. Even that was only because Norton is a good for nothing Antivirus.
It only takes me 10 Seconds to boot my computer. I never had a problem with internet being slow or anything. |
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Icarus_Falling
I am Ryan's Tyler Durden
Joined: Jul 12, 2007
Posts: 1270
Location: beyond human comprehension
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| Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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What problem are you trying to solve, gamefreak?
I'm probably not adding much to the thread, but I concur the unanimous notion that Windows ME should generally be avoided. As folks have already mentioned, it's more than a bit wonky, and driver support never solidified for it. I've known various people who have, uh, upgraded to ME from 98, only to find that most of their peripherals stopped working properly. Compared to Win98, ME caused more problems than it was worth, and most of what was actually supposed to be good about ME was retrofitted to 98 in the second edition. Windows ME was not one of Microsoft's finest moments.
I'd say Windows 2000 is a reasonably solid OS; it's based on the NT source line, which is quite a bit more robust and secure than anything in the 9x/ME line. You've got a much more solid kernel, real user accounts, and NFTS offers sevearl enhancements. [9x/ME were basically DOS with a fancy GUI and slightly enhanced FAT based file systems.] I assume you keep it up to date with service packs and what not; it's in sustained engineering mode until 2010.
A possible drawback of Win2k is that it is not the most ideal OS for gaming [and I'm considering your handle, here]. If you want something that might be a bit better for gaming than Win2k, I concur with dumbgenius, Windows 98 Second Edition is the way to go. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend switching from 2k to 98SE; it all comes down to what problem you're trying to solve.
Any way you can cram a bit more memory in there? If you can find it [with a bit of luck], memory for a computer that old would be practically free at a second-hand computer shop. 2k does like to have more memory than 98SE.
| dumbgenius wrote: | Microsoft tried to confuse people by giving it a letter name instead of the number scheme used in previous 9x OSes. I guess they thought it would help sell more copies.
Example: 2000 and ME are switched and don't fit the pattern.
9x
95, 98, ME
NT
2000, XP, Vista |
<sigh> Different generational teams of marketing folks mucking with things in succession. All of the different SKU's for Vista [and Office] make my head spin.
Good fortune,
- Icarus
_________________
Please forgive me if, in the heat of battle, I sometimes forget which side I'm on.
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gamefreak
I don't have a monopoly, I'm just competitive
Joined: Dec 31, 2006
Age: 18
Posts: 1202
Location: Spring Hill, Florida
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| Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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What i have been trying to do is make it were i can play my MS-DOS
games like Commander Keen w/ functioality and sound. |
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Hendikins
Blue Jay
Joined: Jun 25, 2007
Posts: 97
Location: 34°00'S, 150°52'E
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| Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| gamefreak wrote: | What i have been trying to do is make it were i can play my MS-DOS
games like Commander Keen w/ functioality and sound. |
Have you looked at DOSBox?
I don't know how well it would run on older hardware though.
_________________
Michael Hendy
Mozilla PluginDoc - http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/
Hendikins - The Lurking Wolfox - Art by MistyStriker/Bingo |
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gamefreak
I don't have a monopoly, I'm just competitive
Joined: Dec 31, 2006
Age: 18
Posts: 1202
Location: Spring Hill, Florida
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| Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Hendikins wrote: | | gamefreak wrote: | What i have been trying to do is make it were i can play my MS-DOS
games like Commander Keen w/ functioality and sound. |
Have you looked at DOSBox?
I don't know how well it would run on older hardware though. |
Tried it and it only works with really old Pre-286 games on my computer.
If i`m running a VGA game like Wolf3D it will be really slow. |
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Kamex
Raven
Joined: Sep 03, 2006
Age: 21
Posts: 119
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| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:18 am Post subject: |
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First off, make sure you've tried the latest DOSBox, I've seen HUGE speed improvements with it. Though my machine is much faster than yours, it's worth a try.
If that doesn't work, I would have to recommend Windows 98 for running DOS apps, specifically Second Edition. ME worked fine for me when I tested it on Microsoft Virtual PC, but then, I've heard of a few other people who had no problems with it when running on ideal hardware. I saw one machine running it where it informed us that it had removed several of its own critical files and that it would like to be reinstalled. There was no install medium, unfortunately,
If you do go with 98, I would initially connect it to the Internet to ensure you have all stability updates to the product via Windows Update. Once you've done this, disable your ethernet adapter in the device manager and never connect it to the Internet again. 98's no longer supported by Microsoft, and there are some severe, known holes that Microsoft won't patch due to end of support. All they offer via Windows Update now are the updates that were made before the end of support. Same goes with ME. If you have any desire to use Windows on the Internet, keep your copy of 2000 around. Do not browse any untrusted pages with any version of 9x.
And of course, all this is impossible without hardware that works with 98 in the first place. See if you can find drivers for 98 for your critical devices before you even think about doing this. You might have better luck with vanilla DOS, for which you'd primarily just need sound card and mouse drivers, and generic ones will probably work there. Either one should run the DOS apps fine, but 98 would be easier to set up and DOS would provide a more authentic experience if you're into that.
Regardless of what you decide, including DOS/9x in a multiboot setup is much more of a challenge than just Windows NT and Linux. Prepare to be without your computer for a few days while you figure out why you're getting strange errors, etc. In particular, there's a bug in Windows 98 where if you have a second hard drive and that drive contains no partition readable by 98, it will ask you to insert the CD into the unreadable hard drive before you can continue, which, of course, is impossible. If this is the case, you'll have to either temporarily put a FAT16/32 partition on the second drive until you finish installing 98, or physically open up the computer to remove the second hard drive temporarily if the former cannot be done. Have another machine or a friend who can look stuff up for you online in case you get any weird errors like this. My experiences installing Windows 98 on modern machines were not pleasant, but then again, the machine was built for XP, not for 2000, so it might go easier on you. Least you won't have my ram problem. I had to physically remove a stick of ram because the fact that I had a gig made it complain that I had "insufficient memory to install Windows 98" or something to that effect.  Again, I recommend against ME, which is known to be even less stable. 98 at least runs fine once installed. |
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gamefreak
I don't have a monopoly, I'm just competitive
Joined: Dec 31, 2006
Age: 18
Posts: 1202
Location: Spring Hill, Florida
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| Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Kamex wrote: | First off, make sure you've tried the latest DOSBox, I've seen HUGE speed improvements with it. Though my machine is much faster than yours, it's worth a try.
If that doesn't work, I would have to recommend Windows 98 for running DOS apps, specifically Second Edition. ME worked fine for me when I tested it on Microsoft Virtual PC, but then, I've heard of a few other people who had no problems with it when running on ideal hardware. I saw one machine running it where it informed us that it had removed several of its own critical files and that it would like to be reinstalled. There was no install medium, unfortunately,
If you do go with 98, I would initially connect it to the Internet to ensure you have all stability updates to the product via Windows Update. Once you've done this, disable your ethernet adapter in the device manager and never connect it to the Internet again. 98's no longer supported by Microsoft, and there are some severe, known holes that Microsoft won't patch due to end of support. All they offer via Windows Update now are the updates that were made before the end of support. Same goes with ME. If you have any desire to use Windows on the Internet, keep your copy of 2000 around. Do not browse any untrusted pages with any version of 9x.
And of course, all this is impossible without hardware that works with 98 in the first place. See if you can find drivers for 98 for your critical devices before you even think about doing this. You might have better luck with vanilla DOS, for which you'd primarily just need sound card and mouse drivers, and generic ones will probably work there. Either one should run the DOS apps fine, but 98 would be easier to set up and DOS would provide a more authentic experience if you're into that.
Regardless of what you decide, including DOS/9x in a multiboot setup is much more of a challenge than just Windows NT and Linux. Prepare to be without your computer for a few days while you figure out why you're getting strange errors, etc. In particular, there's a bug in Windows 98 where if you have a second hard drive and that drive contains no partition readable by 98, it will ask you to insert the CD into the unreadable hard drive before you can continue, which, of course, is impossible. If this is the case, you'll have to either temporarily put a FAT16/32 partition on the second drive until you finish installing 98, or physically open up the computer to remove the second hard drive temporarily if the former cannot be done. Have another machine or a friend who can look stuff up for you online in case you get any weird errors like this. My experiences installing Windows 98 on modern machines were not pleasant, but then again, the machine was built for XP, not for 2000, so it might go easier on you. Least you won't have my ram problem. I had to physically remove a stick of ram because the fact that I had a gig made it complain that I had "insufficient memory to install Windows 98" or something to that effect. :roll: Again, I recommend against ME, which is known to be even less stable. 98 at least runs fine once installed. |
I could try making it were my computer dual-boots between 98 and 2000 via 2 hard drives. |
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gamefreak
I don't have a monopoly, I'm just competitive
Joined: Dec 31, 2006
Age: 18
Posts: 1202
Location: Spring Hill, Florida
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| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Icarus_Falling wrote: | What problem are you trying to solve, gamefreak?
I'm probably not adding much to the thread, but I concur the unanimous notion that Windows ME should generally be avoided. As folks have already mentioned, it's more than a bit wonky, and driver support never solidified for it. I've known various people who have, uh, upgraded to ME from 98, only to find that most of their peripherals stopped working properly. Compared to Win98, ME caused more problems than it was worth, and most of what was actually supposed to be good about ME was retrofitted to 98 in the second edition. Windows ME was not one of Microsoft's finest moments.
I'd say Windows 2000 is a reasonably solid OS; it's based on the NT source line, which is quite a bit more robust and secure than anything in the 9x/ME line. You've got a much more solid kernel, real user accounts, and NFTS offers sevearl enhancements. [9x/ME were basically DOS with a fancy GUI and slightly enhanced FAT based file systems.] I assume you keep it up to date with service packs and what not; it's in sustained engineering mode until 2010.
A possible drawback of Win2k is that it is not the most ideal OS for gaming [and I'm considering your handle, here]. If you want something that might be a bit better for gaming than Win2k, I concur with dumbgenius, Windows 98 Second Edition is the way to go. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend switching from 2k to 98SE; it all comes down to what problem you're trying to solve.
Any way you can cram a bit more memory in there? If you can find it [with a bit of luck], memory for a computer that old would be practically free at a second-hand computer shop. 2k does like to have more memory than 98SE.
| dumbgenius wrote: | Microsoft tried to confuse people by giving it a letter name instead of the number scheme used in previous 9x OSes. I guess they thought it would help sell more copies.
Example: 2000 and ME are switched and don't fit the pattern.
9x
95, 98, ME
NT
2000, XP, Vista |
<sigh> Different generational teams of marketing folks mucking with things in succession. All of the different SKU's for Vista [and Office] make my head spin.
Good fortune,
- Icarus |
I have Service Pack 4 |
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