Thoroughly MEdiocre 2001 HP Pavilion laptop with Windows ME

[@rayphoenix7296]

This is beyond anything imaginable for a lot of people in the early 2000's. Having a computer that can play DVDs was a luxury and having it also connect to a TV was almost unheard of.

[@Linuxpunk81]

I had one, it was pretty terrible

[@9852323]

Exactly. What I would’ve done for a laptop like this back in the day.

[@SMGJohn]

DVD was indeed luxury but 90% of these laptops were Godawful, ThinkPads were decent but suffered from overheating, I cannot honestly think of any laptop from that era that were not insufferable piece of craps, the Macbooks actually were pretty decent back then. Mac OS X was also pretty great, I honestly miss Mac OS X it was WAY superior to the new MacOS junk they do these days, and ironically had wider support for software and games, Windows was still king of king but in the laptop scene, there were nothing good, Alienware were pretty great, Clevo was okay, build quality was atrocious but the cooling and user serviceability was amazing. Honestly, it was either having a Macbook and a desktop PC, or you were invested into Alienware gaming laptop.

[@johnpriceuk]

Pretty amusing to a Brit to see you using “Keeping Up Appearances” to demonstrate the DVD player 😁

[@mordekaiser_1312]

damn, that's indeed a behemoth of a machine. maybe hp marketed it as kind of a multimedia powerhouse

[@albear972]

I honestly, in my personal opinion feel that the Windows ME hatred is quite unwarranted. Back in the Summer of 2000 I attended a Microsoft Windows ME industry event, and I received a brand spankin' new copy of ME a few weeks before it was released to the public. The OS brought new life to my old PC from 1997 that originally came with W98. I honestly loved ME it was very stable and never gave problems at all. Unlike the W10 crap I'm currently using. Doing some decluttering a few years back I threw away the cool looking hologram disc, along with many other genuine W95 W98 W2000 and XP. discs. I at least wish I would have kept that cool looking ME disc.

[@stevesstuff1450]

Likewise..... never had a problem with 'Win Me'; it was a nice, clean upgrade from 98SE, ran quickly, and was very stable! 😏

[@adamlipsky8010]

And I was an IT technician back then and ended up going back to all customers and reinstalling all MEs to 98s. That thing wasn't able to handle almost any DOS software reliably, tampered with DOS startup settings, had stability issues, was too big to install, slowed games, many didn't start... To the end of my career in the industry, I haven't seen a bigger fuckup

[@BokBarber]

It all came down to your personal PC and configuration. I had Me and it was noticeably less stable than the 98SE install it replaced.

[@SnownelVEVO]

Me was fine in concept, and I think it's certainly worth considering today over 98SE now that it's easy to patch real mode DOS support back in and the release day bugs are long since fixed. We were just pushing the 9x kernel too far too fast at the time, and Microsoft's rush job in getting it out the door didn't help.

[@dglcomputers1498]

Wasn't part of the issue with ME that it was close enough to 98 that drivers were not really modified properly, and it was these iffy drivers that caused the instability.

[@IsopropylRecordings]

Love the buttons, LCD and CD rom, and in general all the ports and feats (better to have then to miss them.) Windows ME i dont miss, at all.

[@Jako1987]

Free ME product key! Thank you very much 😁

[@twocvbloke]

I had a later Toshiba Satellite A30-203 that had the "play music when turned off" thing, never used it cos it was an awfully large thing to stick in one's pocket to listen to a CD on the go, versus a portable CD player or cassette walkman... :P

[@pbft.j]

These videos you make will be a GIFT to future generations. I was a toddler in 2001 and I am beyond enthralled by this technology that was just barely out of my reach. I grew up with the first iPod being a standard - the way that under display fingerprint scanners & Lidar face scanning are today. Someday there will come a time where even getting the cables to connect these machines will be almost impossible to buy. This video in itself is a time capsule for those 20 somethings of 2081, long after we're gone. Incredible.

[@ryjelsum]

A lot of legacy ports like the parallel and especially VGA looking serial ports are not going to go extinct anytime soon, they're used in industrial applications too much. Hell, my Gigabyte B365 motherboard has COM and LPT ports on the motherboard, though they're on a pin header and have to be broken out.

[@QuantumVirus7]

Your videos bring me complete peace.

[@TheDuumiMuumi]

My sister still has a laptop exactly like this, although it's called HP Omnibook XE3. Only differences are smaller screen, different colored top case and only 800MHz Pentium III, rest is the same as yours. She used it until 2012, it got upgraded to Windows XP at some point.

[@Neksus-M06]

There were two lines: XE3 and XE3L which was even more stripped down and had issues with speedstep and above 700mhz PIII cpus not going at full speed. Business oriented indeed.

[@KeksimusMaximus]

Poor girl. Imagine using pentium 3 in 2013

[@CarlosGanhao]

I just restored mine 2 weeks ago, it’s a Omnibook XE3, Celeron 1.06Ghz 386MB sdram and a 30Gb SSD to replace the old dying IBM Deathstar that was inside :) it was my first laptop ( as was the first they could afford) I kinda love it… but it lacks on somethings like plastic quality, and the 3D thing! It’s powered by à Intel 830 I think.

[@Neksus-M06]

@@CarlosGanhao Yours was the GF version.

[@andycristea]

@@Neksus-M06 My friend had an Xe3 with a 1Ghz Tualatin and it was very fast at the time and had no speedstep issues.

[@8_Bit]

I actually liked Windows ME and used it for several years once I discovered a few tweaks to the settings that made it a lot more stable. I wish I remembered exactly what settings; one of them was removing a checkbox in the network settings about automatic detection. I was doing trouble-shooting for an ISP at the time, and many customers had ME, so I got paid to figure this stuff out. I'm sure I wouldn't have bothered otherwise.

[@PJBonoVox]

Ah, Robin. All I can remember from the time were device drivers that hadn't been updated (and never would be) causing frustrating BSODs.

[@adid.5585]

This feature with the independent CD player is really cool and unique! Kudos to HP for this innovation! There were a lot of people back then who were using their own computers to play Audio CDs, so the fact that you could do this on this laptop without it even been booted up into the OS was really cool and practical.

[@analogidc1394]

I'm impressed the battery still functions. I'm guessing the original owner didn't put too much mileage on the battery, or maybe he didn't care for Windows Me-h.

[@RealEpikCartfrenYT]

the entire laptop looks in really good condition... perhaps it wasn't used much

[@LightTheUnicorn]

Lots of really nice features packed in there! Might not be a great retro gaming machine, but it'd sure make a great bridge machine with all it's ports, expandability and drives!

[@vwestlife]

*its

[@realityshotgun]

@@vwestlife lmao, you're great.

[@Warutteri]

@@vwestlife Holy shit that was brutal! 😍

[@SixSpeeed]

@@vwestlife Own that freak

[@mharris5047]

Unless the RAM was replaced later 256MB was a lot for the time of manufacture. Most computers of that era only came with 64 or 128MB of RAM. The 20GB HDD was also more than most computers had back then.

[@5argetech56]

Keeping Up Appearances and Fawlty Towers. Two of my most favorite British comedies. Hyacinth Bucket, excuse me, it's pronounced Bouquet.. 😊😊👍

[@TRLTheRandomLab]

I feel the same way about Windows ME -- it wasn't terrible but I wouldn't be picking it over Win98 SE, since it was just a mediocre attempt at making Windows 98 Third Edition. Honestly, I think of Windows 11 in the same way, while I like some of the new features it brings, such as the ability to restore the placement of windows when disconnecting and reconnecting an external display (like every other OS), as well as the native Android emulation... those easily could've been put into 10. Especially since 10 was supposed to be the "last version of Windows ever".

[@Macabre215]

Yep, ME was basically a half-assed attempt to move on from DOS. That's the worst part of it.

[@dhpbear2]

I skipped Win ME; later, Vista (eccch!)

[@mharris5047]

@@dhpbear2 I skipped Vista, too. It wasn't intentional, I was using off lease computers and they came with XP Professional. I used XP until the cut-off date in 2014 then installed a series of Buntus on it in dual-boot with XP. I still have the computer but haven't even turned it on in at least two years. Two years ago it would still play KZbin at 360p with Lubuntu 18.04. Most Linux distros no longer have a 32 bit version so the computer is truly obsolete now.

[@RowanBird779]

@@dhpbear2 Vista was actually pretty good, although I only ever used SP2

[@marcelanddog3171]

0:15 not sure if the Mac wins the beauty contest with its childish design 🤣

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Careful you'll trigger them lol

[@vwestlife]

*its

[@AsukaLangleyS02]

@@vwestlife *it's a disgusting laptop

[@marcelanddog3171]

@@vwestlife right, thanks.

[@goclunker]

Yeah, the trackmaster plastic of the HP is much better

[@CoolDudeClem]

I had windows 98 back in 2001. I didn't get ME until 2003, and I had to keep getting it fixed!

[@retroftw]

A big issue for many with ME is the lack of DOS support vs 98SE. Especially with retro gaming.

[@johnq4951]

Worse is it was actually there. It was just software locked by Microsoft so they could lie to their customers.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

I believe it can be unlocked. I'm pretty sure I've seen retro gaming tweaks that allow you to access DOS mode in ME.

[@retroftw]

@@FlyboyHelosim I think PhilsComputerLab made a video about unlocking DOS in ME

[@FlyboyHelosim]

@@retroftw For some reason my original reply got removed, but I said I saw patches for DOS mode in ME years before that video you're talking about. In fact I just looked and I've still got the patch on one of my retro flight sim websites. ;)

[@moottori_paa]

IBM Thinkpad T22 was my choice back then 2001.

[@notpsicoh2107]

14:43 The drumbeat in the background there is sampled directly from the song Cloud Spires from Spyro 3? I suppose that sample could have come from somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure Stewart Copeland wrote that part for that game.

[@EgoShredder]

Nice bit of continuity there from the video clip laughing at British Leyland cars, and then to the shot of the ESS Allegro PCI audio chipset. The Allegro was an infamous 1970s / 80s car made by British Leyland. It even for a time had a square steering wheel!

[@mpd2022]

I still have my Mom's Dell Inspiron laptop from around this time, windows 2000, 10 GB hard drive, 400 Mhz of RAM, and it has a click in click out dual modular slot system in it where you could do two batteries, or one battery and a floppy drive, or one battery and I (think?) a zip drive that was sold separately. Had the CD/DVD player too but it did not have all of the external play buttons for CDs. It also had a PC card slot and she bought a Linksys Wireless-B card for it (along with a Linksys wireless-B router for the house), thereby becoming the first computer I ever used with wifi. That was mind blowing to my 13 year old self in like 2001. Good memories this video brought back!

[@quertize]

ME edition added automatic driver install for USB flash drives. I kinda liked it. Never had a problem with blue screens or anything really. Maybe my PC was just a good match.

[@akaJughead]

You got lucky then. I had an old HP computer with Windows ME pre-installed on it back on the day, and I think I would see a blue screen every time I used it.

[@jimdayton8837]

Same. I guess it depends on what computer you used it on. I've seen some computers with ME run like crap, and others run perfectly fine like my Dell Dimension L866r.

[@WagTsX]

my PC at the time also had Win Me and runs perfectly fine, despite some compatibility issues with older programs made for 98 not running properly cuz they show "unknown windows version"

[@joesshows6793]

Yeah that is not the norm. The OS was vile garbage

[@kepuexe1]

I used Windows Me not much, but in that time it was stable and could play all my PC games of the time. Using this OS today on a PC of the year 2000 in dual-boot with Windows 2000 Professional. Sometimes it doesn't boot into Me, but it runs fine. The HP Pavilion looks like a great office laptop at that time. I like the display on the front. And it boots really fast to Windows.

[@exiavaganza]

The thing was more than ready for XP and kick ass for a long time. It sported 256 megs which was a dream at the time, and that composite output proves that laptop was a high-end device.

[@DuranMedine]

I personally think Windows Me is an okay OS, even I though prefer Windows 98 SE for games and multimedia applications. The only things I give Windows Me props is for the updated Windows Explorer and built-in USB Mass Storage Device support. Windows Me is decent if you install it using the right hardware and install some of the patches. Otherwise, Windows 98 SE is usually my go to. Even though I prefer the NT-based versions of Windows for it's stability as a work-horse and for some multimedia applications, which would be Windows 2000 Professional of course because of its reliability and stability. It's fun fact that Windows Me being still based on Windows 9x that used some of visual elements of Windows 2000 including its startup and shutdown sounds. I mainly used Windows 98 alot until 2006 when I started using Windows 2000 even though Windows 2000 is actually rock-solid OS for a year until 2007by making a switch to the infamous Windows Vista.

[@a4e69636b]

What did you use your computer for?

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Ah good old Mistake Edition 2006 we got our first Laptop a Dell Inspiron 1300 with the Pentium M processor, Was a great little XP era machine. I've actually still have it but it's pretty much retried from regular use.

[@Kali_Krause]

I skipped over ME for Windows 98 SE and XP

[@kbhasi]

Interesting. My cousin had a Dell Inspiron 1300 too, but she ended up with the French market version (because she had to live in France in order to work at a company's French office) and didn't think to call Dell to get them to mail her English restore discs intended for the UK market version, so she manually forced English versions of third-party apps to install on the French localised Windows XP installation because she probably didn't know about the registry hack to change the language of the installation as detected by apps. I did that retroactively when she gave it to me, and installed English updates on the French installation, resulting in a weird hybrid of French and English where some stuff is still in French because Windows Update didn't touch those, though I'd like to find a UK restore image for it. The French keyboard on the laptop doesn't work, so I'm considering just replacing it with a UK keyboard. I wished I could've went back in time to help her (as I wouldn't have known about the registry hack myself back then).

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@Kali_Krause so did we lol

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@kbhasi That sounds like a lot of headaches lol. The biggest one I had with ours was after I became it's 3rd owner a few years before XP's end of support. I kept using it after EoS (after disabling the Wi-Fi of course lol) the original 80gb western digital EIDE hard drive died. Thankfully I found what was probably the last new old stock 80gb EIDE drive in my town... yes I over paid for it $120 with tax. It took me a full day to reinstall XP all the updates (back than I didn't know about Nlite so had all the updates For every edition burned to a DVD rom with bat file install scripts I copy passed from a KZbin video) and than all the software,game's and files etc

[@kbhasi]

@@JohnSmith-xq1pz Yeah, there were a lot of headaches, because the computer assumed French was her native language, when it was really English, and so Internet Explorer was set to request pages in French, she didn't know how to change the settings, so manually changed websites to display in English. The laptop had a saved iGoogle page that was in French and had all the widgets removed!

[@shotgunl]

Another great video. This brings back the memories: Though I had a socket A Athlon T-bird 1400, 512MB DDR400, and GeForce 2 GTS based desktop that I had built in summer '01 for college, a couple months into the fall I decided I needed something portable too as I had a friend that was making good mobile use of the laptop he had. So, I scraped together some cash from bit of work I was doing and bought an HP Pavilion 5240L which was an even more mediocre unit with a mobile Celeron 800MHz, the same S3 Savage/IX, a 10GB HDD, 8X DVD-ROM ODD, and 128MB of PC100. It also shipped with WinMe, but I bought a copy of Windows 2000 from the school bookstore and upgraded after adding an additional 256MB so-dimm from Crucial (nicely, HP had a "Windows 2000 Upgrade" driver kit with all of the needed drivers for the N5000i series, and I do still have that driver set which I pulled off of the hard drive years back when backing up the data). I also added a 3Com PCMCIA NIC to the system soon after buying it and then swapped that with a Gigafast PCMCIA 802.11b wifi card in '03. The performance of that laptop was not amazing, but it was just enough for a semi-playable experience in Unreal Tournament at 512x384, Quake 2, Age of Empires, Wheel of Time, and Diablo 2. However, it was certainly a big step away from my desktop, and I was very thankful for the speed bump when in 2004 I ordered a custom-order Dell Inspiron 5160N with a P4 2.8Ghz laptop with hyperthreading, 512MB RAM, 64MB GeForce Go 5200, and WinXP. The Go 5200 wasn't amazing, but it was still enough to play some game like Dungeon Siege, UT2003, UT2004, and WoW at low resolutions (~25fps to ~45fps in WoW at 800x600 according the screenshots that are on the laptop I took back then). What it really, really improved was compile times which was important at the time for me because I had moved to a place quite a ways off campus. Still, I was quite fond of that Pavilion 5240L since it was the first laptop I ever bought. After upgrading, I ended up giving it to my 5-year-younger sister so she could use it in high school though she gave it back a few years later. Sadly, the HP was damaged in a fire about a decade ago. I still have it (and even the box etc), but it's in a sorry, mostly-melted, non-working state though amazingly the HDD came out unscathed, which I promptly backed up. The Dell Inspiron 5160N still gets a bit of game time here and there a few times a year when I feel nostalgic (and the desktop I have setup for XP gaming is way, way overkill for some games [for win98 gaming, I use a more appropriate Slot A Athlon 650MHz and TNT2 Pro, which are actually from my first self-built PC from '98 when working during high school] and sometimes I just want a framerate that reminds me of the past).

[@sburton015]

I remember when I was in college in fall of 2003, the professor said "okay, there is Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 second edition, Windows NT, Windows 2K, and now we have Windows XP. Also Microsoft is working on a new version called Longhorn". I then asked him "Well, what about ME, Windows ME?". He then said "Oh don't even mention that to me, I don't want to even hear about Windows ME".

[@JaredConnell]

Hey Kevin, I just wanted to say it's so nice that you still do KZbin videos for the fun of it and not just to make money like every other person on this site nowadays. I know you aren't going to hawk some crappy merch or whatever sponsors of the month everyone else is plugging and it's just a breath of fresh air so I just wanted to say thanks you for always putting out quality videos just to entertain viewers like me 😁

[@deeomayall]

You're critical of the hardware as well as the software, but in comparison to laptop PCs made over the last 10 years, that is a glorious tank.

[@SparkY0]

It can play DVDs and even edit video, out of the box, without buying extra software or codecs. Windows Me is a multimedia powerhouse compared to Windows 10 and 11. The laptop even has component video out, and a headphone jack!

[@MrDuncl]

That is why I spent a lot of money and effort upgrading my Multimedia PC (which lives under the TV) to Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center when Windows 7 went end of life. I'm not sure what I will do when Windows 8.1 expires. Microsoft seems to have abandoned the home entertainment market.

[@ryjelsum]

If you don't rely on streaming video content, there are some pretty decent media center interfaces for Linux. Unfortunately there are some fiddly issues with streaming DRM on Linux from what I hear so you often have to view streamed content at a reduced resolution if you can even get it to play properly..

[@nernesto]

Despite we already largely surpassed all of this, the features of this laptop triggered my '00s inner child and made me enthusiastic. Composite output! Two PC Card slots! CD-RW and floppy! I really wanted to have one like this back in the day.

[@raymondmartin6737]

My 20 GB Sony Vaio, my first laptop, was from Comp USA, now defunct stores, was about $2,000.00 with Windows ME, just before XP came out, was lousy with ME. Now such differences about 20 years ago!

[@alphabeets]

GB or MB?

[@raymondmartin6737]

@@alphabeets It was 20 GB, which was not too bad for 21 years ago. I forget hoe much ram there was and the processing speed. It was a Pentium type I do remember.

[@uxwbill]

Someone really took decent care of that machine. Surprising and impressive. The Inspiron 7500's battery is also still going strong. I don't have strong feelings about Windows Me. Just like almost everyone else, I never saw it remain stable for any length of time except for one computer where it ran reasonably well for years. Even then, the wheels eventually fell off. As is almost always the case, the commentary is humorous in nature. Although I'd want a pared down version without all the buttons, I'd have picked the HP over the Apple. I didn't care for the 'toilet seat' iBooks in the slightest. Windows 2000 actually shipped with a built in DVD player application. What's missing is the decoder, though it'll happily accept any hardware *or* DirectShow compatible software decoder. (I'm pretty sure you'll find the same is true of WinMe. The application may be there, but I'd be surprised if an actual decoder was.)

[@karenbyfield3702]

I watch all your old videos while taking poops.

[@dhpbear2]

14:38 - The TV output appears to SERIOUSLY crop video, horizontally AND vertically!

[@vwestlife]

I adjusted it to fill the screen. With the default settings it leaves a border around the image (to account for TVs with greater overscan area). And that's a widescreen movie I was playing.

[@BackroomsSlayer]

I've been watching this channel for nearly a decade, good to see another vintage tech video. Gateway GoBack is the very beginnings of what we know as system restore today.

[@louisoft01]

When a computer as old as me is considered vintage I feel old

[@Rouxenator]

Strange that the MIDI quality was so poor. ESS was renowned for their ESFM (enhanced OPL3) synthesis. I had an ESS AudioDrive 1688 in the 90s and it had excellent MIDI playback.

[@quincyandmitchcheng-mader795]

The Keeping Up Appearances DVD made my day!

[@super_slav91]

The clam shell mac has to be my least favorite design of all time it looks like a fisher price product. I would take the HP any day.

[@noahandthefurry4573]

me too i kinda wish we had more variable laptop designs nowadays like that HP

[@PJBonoVox]

Agreed. Even at the time I thought they were hideous. Only saw perhaps 1 or 2 I'm the wild.

[@DreamItCraftIt]

I like it 😵

[@Pmp174]

“I like ugly shit because pretty shit is too mainstream “

[@elerian9702]

Older HP equipment looked really good.

[@soremuss]

I never understood what people loved so much about the style of old Apple tech. I always found it looked worse and even cheaper, like a kids toy.

[@proCaylak]

it was another attempt at making computers more appealing to the general public("wow, look at those cool and trendy colors! they must be more friendly than those dull 'personal' computers!"). apple's been form over function most of the time and overall that has worked for them pretty well.

[@andreasu.3546]

This one here looks exactly like one of those Vtech "laptops" for children.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Yeah and even the OS looks like a kid's one, hence why it's dubbed the 'Fisher-Price' OS.

[@KeksimusMaximus]

Fax

[@bradcr152]

It’s because it’s not for unix/linux nerds. It’s for 98% of the population. Not the 2% doing IT for the rest

[@luks-3]

I have almost the same laptop, though its model is Omnibook XE3 and it has 98 and not Me. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at the moment. Nostalgic video for me, thank you

[@BillyLapTop]

Good review. It reminded me of the Pavilion N5470 I purchased within the 2001 time frame. It was a desktop replacement computer and I was not disappointed in it, though it came with 98SE. I upgraded it to XP and it was functional for the next 5 years. It had the distinction of having the first AMD mobile processor operating at 1Ghz. I upgraded the RAM to 512 MB. Used a PCMCIA card for wifi. It had the same CD player front panel layout as yours. As the older it got it became a real dog accessing the internet but the other functions worked well until I retired it. Loved the old Pavilions, they were a solid product if configured correctly.

[@VectraQS]

I bought a Micron TransPort XKE off eBay a couple weeks ago to replace my TransPort XPE, which is probably dead. I expected Windows 95... but I turned it on, and up came Windows Me. I couldn't even open files by double clicking them at first, Explorer would just freeze. I think a defragment solved that issue. Looks like this used the ever-ubiquitous Phoenix NoteBIOS... with its irritating proprietary Save to Disk function that requires its own temperamental partition, and you can't find the utility to make one anymore.

[@xbmc79]

In germany Windows ME is called MülleimerEdition, which means trash bin edition :D I love this cool cd player option.

[@fsfs555]

That's a nice CD player you have there. And it comes with a built-in computer? Sweet deal. The best thing about Me is that the installer came with extensive driver support so I almost never had to go in and manually install drivers (my stuff was all pretty old) so it was a quick and easy way to get Windows on something. Me was still a little flaky compared to 98 though and given the choice I preferred 2k.

[@agenericaccount3935]

You couldn’t pay me to remember Me. As to early 2k’s designs, it was a dark time. It’s like they all forgot that right angles existed. Apple was the worst offender.

[@jrmcferren]

I bought one of these used 17 years ago, but mine had Windows 2000. The buttons on the front will also work with Windows Media Player with the computer on and I was able to use the buttons to control MP3 playback.

[@8_Bit]

Funny to see Television Type: [NTSC] in BIOS settings! Don't think I've seen that before.

[@vwestlife]

Yes, you can switch it to PAL too.

[@kirkmooneyham]

Around that time, I had a Dell Inspiron with an NVidia graphics card in it. It came with Windows Me, which I found to be really lackluster and buggy. I got a copy of Windows 2000 Pro, got it installed, and never looked back. Yeah, you had to work a bit harder to find drivers and the like, but it was worth it. SO much more stable and just seemed smoother.

[@jcooper_]

That little BBC ribbon screen was such a massive nostalgia hit back to my early 2000s childhood in the UK, hahaha

[@Browningate]

That model reminds me of my ZT1250, also circa-2001, but with a slightly different port layout, and XP from new. Same powered-off CD player and composite output trick though. I remember it having an S3 Twister video chipset, but could never get more than 512MB of memory because the second slot had actually completely lost all tension.

[@GreenVibezIguanaDaddy]

Great video. Keep up the great work my man :)

[@TDGalea]

Holy crap, that old BBC intro hit me in the nostalgia.

[@steventechno]

I'm sure that thing would handle Win XP quite nicely! especially considering it's got plenty of RAM for it. 256MB was fairly Ideal in the early XP days, and my Personal PC back then ran with only 96MB of RAM and it handled itself rather well back then. Keep in mind it was used for gaming and multimedia quite heavily. It's a surprise that ol' thing ran Project64 and ePSXe as well as it did. ...and yes, it too had ME pre-installed and only switched to XP after ME began to decay for some reason. It was a Gateway desktop with similar specs.

[@CARLiCON]

5:50 re: infrared data transmitter & receiver, back in those days I used a MindPath Pocket Point which is a combo laser pointer/IR remote control. You could use it as a pointer for presentations on projector screen & also use the IR remote buttons to control power point slides, etc. Right up your alley!

[@warrenmacdonald1372]

Happy New Year Kevin.

[@ScootZMedia]

the irony my dad has this exact laptop back in the day

[@blautens]

I've been an IT professional since the 80s...still haven't ever seen an infrared port actually in use, but I certainly have them on some of my old laptops. Very nice trip down memory lane, thanks.

[@Kali_Krause]

Was the infrared port an attempt at creating wireless internet back then?

[@dennisp.2147]

@@Kali_Krause No. It was just a short range communications protocol for transferring information between computers. Nothing to do with the internet and WiFi as we know it now.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

@@Kali_Krause It was more akin to Bluetooth if anything. Short-range, wireless, data transfer... albeit had to be line-of-sight.

[@Auralnoirr]

Transferring data to a PDA was the only thing I've ever used it for

[@eDoc2020]

I think the most practical use of IrDA was probably for printing. Can you imagine, _wireless_ printing? It's certainly easier than wrangling a parallel printer cable. Doubly so if you shut down the computer before connecting your LPT cable like you're technically supposed to.

[@paulwilliams4274]

@VWestlife enable the font smoothing!!! Great video. I love old tech. Thanks!

[@lucasn0tch]

On a Japanese KZbin channel, I jokingly called Windows Me "駄Me", which is a pun on "駄目 (だめ)", or "no way" in Japanese. The uploader loved my comment.

[@AcasaInNatura]

What speaker model is at 11:30? My parents used to have a pair of those and I was wondering what brand name or model no they were? :D

[@thevacdude]

And on the back, this thing has enough ports to satisfy a seaman.

[@retroftw]

The Bouquet Residence, Lady of the House Speaking! 😀 Classic 90s show!

[@emancaindec9731]

VWestlife, this laptop is a perfect candidate to compare its design that we don't see on modern laptops anymore. Such as that multiple trapdoors to access certain parts. The laptop I have now, you have to remove the whole undercasing thing.

[@obsoletegeek]

I have one of these! It has somewhat of a ruggedized feel with the rubber bumpers.

[@JDX_117]

Love these kinds of throwback vids, dope vid all around!

[@cheeseparis1]

the end of the video was so cute... let's land a plane!

[@MultiWirth]

Windows ME is far less worse than it's reputation. I installed it onto an old 1997 pentium mmx laptop and not only did it pick up ALL devices, it also just ran perfectly fine. It also is the first windows with proper USB support. It has a more reliable driver support. It's pretty much a windows 98 third edition, but without the DOS mode.

[@vwestlife]

*its

[@TommyCrosby]

Playing CDs while the laptop is off is a cool feature, but my old self would still power up the system just to use the flashy full screen visualizations.

[@MrPancakeRepairman]

Keeping up appearances - CLASSIC!

[@AceWing905]

I love that Windows 2000/Me startup sound So much nostalgia there Shame Windows startup sounds just died and now we have plain silence

[@lftdblazer]

Am I the only who didn't have a problem with ME? We had an xh156 Pavilion back then. Worked great imho. Wish I could still use it now honestly. It croaked long ago, plus went through a flood a few years ago. We kept it for some reason, but it's no hope.

[@velvetpilot2008]

My middle school used Windows 2000 instead of ME and they used it for years. I knew only one person who had Millennium Edition and they hated it. I will say this laptop is pretty impressive. I would have loved to have this. That CD player on the front is fresh as all get up.

[@ChrisOlewnik]

Nice Video! I had a similar model HP Pavilion laptop back in the day. If I remember correctly you can Fast Forward and Rewind by holding the >>| or |

[@hughmarshall8704]

12:02 - If I didn't know better I would say that the ESS Allegro chip was sampling the music at an odd frequency and bit rate. Not only were the instruments distorted but the entire MIDI sequence was also playing at a whole semitone higher than the original. Mind you, given Windows Me killed real DOS mode support, the games at least had access to the MS Wavevtable Synth if you chose General MIDI in the settings...

[@KrissBartlett]

nice to hear Bill staring in your post hahah

[@Me11oIngenuity]

That was my very first laptop. I loved it. Win ME was fine.

[@goclunker]

The start up sound instantly makes me think of that flash animation about Windows RG😂 Windows has performed an illegal exemption and will be pew pewed. "Ok"

[@emancaindec9731]

It must be an exciting time and worst time to buy computers during the early 2000s, that we can still see those big hype stickers, beige coloring cases, boosting additional features, and other bizarre designs. Bad news is, (this is just based on my observations) the PC that you just bought will be quickly turned obsolete less than a year. Unlike today's computers (depending on what you use it for), a 10 year old pc is still usable. Just casual use.

[@vwestlife]

Case in point: I edited and uploaded this video on my 2008 MacBook Pro!

[@emancaindec9731]

awesome... thank you for the video!

[@eDoc2020]

I found my old Y2K laptop perfectly fine for casual use in 2009-12ish, or at least after upgrading the RAM to 192MB. A clean XP install in 2013 breathed a bit more life into it. Sure it wasn't the fastest but IIRC it wasn't slow enough for me to complain.

[@error52]

Where is the clip from at 11:29? I remember the voice, but can't put a name to it. Another KZbinr?

[@vwestlife]

That's the late River Huntington (AG3304).

[@itsmetimmee]

What a lovely machine! Kinda miss the ME boot up sound.

[@fab555trainspottingandmore]

Windows ME is just a bad Windows 2000 replica but the Laptop had some very great Features for its time

[@AndrewLittleboy1]

11:29. Nice to hear River's voice. He's still very sadly missed. 😢

[@michaeljackson5938]

3 years have gone by R.I.P River Huntingdon you will be missed.

[@WalterKnox]

that HP laptop was exactly the first laptop I ever had. It ran windows ME and had a bad battery by time I got it. I took it everywhere and used it all the time. I had a PCMCIA wifi card and actually used it online. I think around 2014 I finally got a better laptop from my school when they were getting rid of all of their latitude d610 laptops. still have that one.

[@imark7777777]

I briefly had an a counter with windows me and yeah I'm gonna call it Windows mah from now on. My impression was it's kind of like when does 98 updated with some of the features that we didn't get to see until XP so there was this weird two-tone styling like we have with windows 10 windows 11 and if you dig deep enough 7 dialogues.

[@will89687]

Windows Mistake Edition! Actually laptops that *shipped* with ME were generally not that bad; it's the upgrades that I had troubles with...

[@chucku00]

"HP" is the French abbreviation for psychiatric institution (Hôpital Psychiatrique). Every resident building in an "Hôpital Psychiatrique" is called a "Pavillon"... voilà.

[@TheBuffaloEstate]

I want that DVD - lady of the house speaking!

[@DrewTNaylor]

We had this laptop back in the day, and it was really cool seeing a video on it. Didn't know what the slots right next to the floppy drive were, but it makes sense that it's two PC cards. I think the two black plastic pieces next to them are the eject buttons then, and they'd be folded out then pressed in as I remember doing that a lot for fun. It wasn't running Me for long as we upgraded it to XP shortly after. While the graphics performance may not be great, I remember playing the Jimmy Neutron PC game (and a few other games like Jimmy Negatron and Stuart Little for PC [that was mostly 2D, though]) on it, and it ran alright, although I was only a few years old (between 2 and 6, yes I used the touchpad even at 2), so maybe I didn't know what good performance was at the time. I also remember playing several Humongous Entertainment games on it back then. Also just remembered that I played Spongebob 3D Obstacle Odyssey on it quite a lot too, and it was actually the best-supported computer we had for it as the tower's GPU didn't support transparency for Sandy's helmet. Sadly I don't think the sequel worked too well on that system, either that or I just decided to buy it and hope it worked because the demo took too long to load. Actually, I think that one needed a newer computer to run well, which is the one I played it on. Back to the HP laptop, I remember thinking the front panel area was so cool, though I never played CDs with it and instead used it for status. Sadly the battery went bad due to being left plugged in too much. Back to games on it, I remember there was a Monsters Inc. demo that said to "press the moon button", so as expected, I pressed the moon button, which was standby, and it kept going to sleep so I never got to play the game. I also just remembered that I played some of the PC version of Scare Island on this laptop, though my disc was scratched and I couldn't complete much more than the first world. Fortunately the PS1 version was basically the same, so we just bought a copy of that from eBay and I played that instead, with rumble and all once I upgraded to a PS2 in 2007 or so as a gift. I keep remembering games I played on it, such as the point-and-click Spongebob game, Employee of the Month. Ran pretty well on it I think. One I tried to play but never worked was Lights, Camera, Pants, but eventually I found the PS2 version at GameStop so I played that instead. Still don't know if it's the same or not. I also remember dialing up to Nick(dot)com and downloading game demos. There was a Jimmy Neutron FPS involving rogue inventions that I couldn't manage to control properly so the screen went straight, likely due to hardware limitations.

[@sburton015]

I actually still have a laptop even older than this, its a Toshiba Satellite 330cds from 1998. It has a 266 mhz Intel Pentium MMx cpu with 96 mb of ram and a 4.0 gb hard drive and I have it on Windows 98 second edition. Still works fine today even after almost 24 years later since it was made. I remember also my very first gaming PC that I built myself was also in early 2001, I built it with a 1 ghz Pentium III cpu with 256 mb of ram, 20 gb hard drive, CD-RW drive and dvd rom drive, floppy drive, 32 mb creative annihilator Geforce 2 graphics card, Creative sound blaster card, and for the operating system, I originally had Windows ME on it, but then later upgraded it to Windows XP in 2002.

[@thedgatmsn]

Nice machine! I still have my IBM A22M laptop. I keep it for nostalgia.

[@techbaffle]

That laptop must have either had little use or been very well looked after. The labels all look immaculate!

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

It would be cool to see a modern laptop have this much expansion, but this system is still great! I wouldn’t be surprised if someone who bought this, or a similar DVD capable model, used it as a DVD player at home since having built in composite would be extremely convenient for that. It’s also nice that the factory install is still on the system, the themes alone make it complete! Windows Me isn’t all that bad, and while other options for operating systems exist, if you have several older computers/laptops on Windows 95/98, 2000 or XP, then might as well have an Me system to have them all and maybe create some content with its multimedia capabilities! Edit your miniDV tapes instantly with the all new Windows Movie Maker!

[@pibbanon1987]

I can only imagine how that thing would perform on the internet after 20 years. Trying to load KZbin would probably make it catch on fire. Then again, I was able to play a KZbin video through DuckDuckgo on a P3M 1200 a few months ago.

[@Turbiales]

I love gray and utilitarian, I think these HP is a thing of beauty.

[@HereIsApap]

Brings back memories. My first PC was also a Pentium 3 with Windows ME. Man, what a time.