Windows ME: Worth the Hate?

Windows ME is easily one of the most derided versions of Windows, but few seem to realize just how much influence it had over versions of Windows following it.
Clips in order of appearance:
MICROSOFT LAUNCH WINDOWS 98 - • USA: MICROSOFT LAUNCH ... (6:02)
Windows ME Footage - / @paul.thurrott (7:12)
The Kids' Guide to the Internet - • The Kids' Guide to the... (7:52)
Music Used:
Feel The Funk - Jimmy Fontanez (0:00)
Love Explosion - Silent Partner (0:43)
Storage Theme - Chex Quest (2:34)
Tiptoe Out the Back - Dan Lebowitz (4:04)
Present Day - E's Jammy Jams (6:38)
Sunshine Samba - Chris Haugen (8:32)

[@cpuwrite]

I heard that Microsoft was going to take the best parts of Windows CE, Windows ME and Windows NT, and make it a much stronger product...and that they were going to call it Windows CEMENT.

[@mariannmariann2052]

That was a joke by the internet. Also, for Windows CEMENT 98: Windows CE Crap Edition Windows ME Mistake Edition Windows NT Dosen't Workstation Windows 98 The name says it all™ Windows CEMENT 98 A crap mistake that dosen't work!™

[@fannyglimpse7308]

i used Windows CEMENT - it was like running through wet concrete

[@TazarZero]

This joke is new to me, and I think it's brilliant~ Easily amused~

[@cpuwrite]

@@TazarZero Not my original idea.

[@cpuwrite]

@@fannyglimpse7308 LOL! What do you expect from Microsoft?

[@bradleymcquade]

8:08 “Hello, how are you?” “I’m doing great” *Closes Window*

[@lukasz2284]

EPIC chat

[@beni6746]

I litreally died at that moment when she closed the window.

[@skril733]

@@beni6746 How did you type this comment?

[@tylerboothman4496]

@@beni6746 kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJrPYYp5ncSIpbM

[@LookingGlass69]

Once you know the person is alive there is not really much to say.

[@TheFirstNellah]

I had a friend in elementary / middle school who had a computer running Windows ME. One of the routines when people came over to play games on the computer was to reinstall Windows so it would act right. Every time.

[@pyeltd.5457]

I used to warm the screen up as I used to think that ice froze up the screen.

[@Bewefau]

You should stopped looking at all that porn.

[@MasterOfBasses]

Yes! I would reinstall Windows ME at least every week

[@lukasz2284]

Reinstalling system every time? Come on. Don't be silly: WindowsMe required more reinstalls ;) Tbh, I didn't do that every time i wanted to play but it was crazy how many times you have to do this task... I did it about 30 or even more times during have this so it was about 1 and a half year

[@MattExzy]

Same. I remember the standard procedure for everyone who bought a Win ME machine was to downgrade straight back to 98. We'd often have times where simply plugging in a new mouse would crash it. Fun times..

[@windowsme8564]

It isn’t my fault that I was bad

[@protoretro1290]

In fact it was the Driver Software. I still use you.

[@nullplan01]

@@protoretro1290 Win95 kept crashing because of drivers. WinME kept crashing because of drivers. Win Vista kept asking for credentials because of drivers. Something of a pattern emerging here...

[@Icybubba]

@@protoretro1290 Upgrade that PC boi

[@CalumHGaming]

You were better than xp

[@mbralliable]

I used you less than 72 hours ago. :)

[@VREDFOX]

8:26 Actual footage of MS devs at work

[@mewtwonick1024]

very original

[@Kromiball]

Sims be like

[@cantin8697]

They didn't even do that with Windows 11... Just rounded some corners in the UI then were like "yep, you need PCs more powerful than average to run this!"

[@LorenHelgeson]

Windows ME is honestly the only OS I've ever seen that would BSoD when I had no programs running on it. Happened more than a couple times.

[@donotryon9389]

lol 95 and 98 were just as guilty

[@LosSantosUriels]

I take it you skipped vista?

[@SteelyGlow]

@@donotryon9389 95 and ME crashed on idle, 98SE was stable enough

[@ephemeralViolette]

@@SteelyGlow I've had Windows 98 blue screen by trying to eject a disc. That's never occurred on any version of NT I've used.

[@mariannmariann2052]

like con/con

[@pepenaman]

Windows ME at the time was like having the coolest rooler skates in town with lights displays on them but using them for more than 5 minutes results in the wheels to spring out causing you to fall flat on your face. Like yeah, cool features, but it'll be nice if I can actually use them.

[@acmenipponair]

The problem with Windows ME was: it had much great features - but lacked the feature of Windows NT, that software could only and ONLY communicate with the hardware via the Windows API. Most of the programs at that time still tried to write directly into memory, tried directly to run the graphics device card (as Direct X wasn't invented yet). Windows 95 and 98 had that problem too, but most programmers in the 90s just circumvent the problem - in producing the games still for DOS, where you had ONE program running at a time. In the end, ME was still DOS based and the DOS basement was the major problem - it gave too much access via bios functions to any program, even in protected mode. That's why MS finally, after 20 years, decided to take MS DOS as the foundation operating system to the graveyards and instead implemented with Direct X the multimedia features of Windows ME into Windows 2000

[@Pidalin]

Most of features of ME were pointless in 2000, like mass storage, movie maker or interenet things. People didn't have internet in 2000, didn't have flash disks, didn't have digital cameras etc...so those features were irrelevant for average user. You can appraise win ME today when you test it because flash disks work etc...that's interesting for 9x based OS, but nobody cared in 2000. If people commonly had flash disks in 2000 and wanted support for most of dos games and early windows games, then they would be probably much more happy with ME than with older win 98 or NT based 2000 which could not run dos games at all.

[@CerealNumberWDW1984]

@@acmenipponair If ME was ever built on NT, people might had praised and liked it A LOT more than how it is remembered today. I remember using Vista SP2 in another computer and it wasn't THAT bad, then I remember trying to install 98 First Edition in a VM, and I didn't have results because Windows Explorer has gone to jail (it has preformed an illegal operation).

[@mbralliable]

I might be the only person who never, ever had a problem with ME. I must have had the golden machine or something that just straight up played nice with it.

[@jackroyer2038]

Me too

[@user-yg4kj2mf1p]

Windows Me run just fine by itself and with only Windows Me drivers loaded, it's when you loaded Windows 9x drivers (containing DOS tidbits) on the thing that everything went to the crapper. Which was the problem with it: It was marketed as a final Windows 9x upgrade but wasn't actually Windows 9x-compatible. Mind you this was still the era of drivers being shipped mainly on CD-ROMs and people would often re-use drivers intended for a previous version of Windows. I have heard stories at school that one scanner worked better with Windows Me by loading the Windows 2000 drivers included in the CD than the Windows 98SE drivers. As a software developer now, I hope whoever came up with this bastardised offspring of 98SE and 2000 that was compatible with neither got canned. Did they think every software publisher and hardware vendor would rewrite their stuff for a single Windows version?

[@user-yg4kj2mf1p]

Microsoft learned their lesson with Vista, never marketing it as a direct hassle-free upgrade from XP and instead publishing upgrade advisors that scanned your drivers and software for compatibility. But then they made the mistake of introducing the pointless "premium" certification for laptops with 1GB of RAM...

[@kornkernel2232]

@@user-yg4kj2mf1p Pretty much like Vista. When you got the right hardware with drivers compatible to Vista, it works just fine. If you install older drivers or do something unexpected like removing old USB device while in operation, it may crash. My first desktop PC that I own came with Windows Me, and it was fine. It did crash on occasion but due to my own stupid mistake like accidentally removing old printer at that time and installing dodgy program. It was very usable and I did enjoy it, especially Movie Maker and Media Player. Two of my most favourite programs at that time. I even play quite amount of games, though the graphics card that I had with it were very weak at that time. Only upgraded later during XP days.

[@MSL209]

Same. 😂

[@evancrazyerror]

I will say, most of the problems in windows me had to do with the pre release version of ie 5.5 that shipped with it. Replace it with ie 6 and it actually becomes a lot more stable. The main problem with me was that because Microsoft said that windows 98 was going to be the last version of Windows, vendors made no real investment into making windows me drivers. This lead to people using half baked windows 98 drivers on their new computer, effectively losing all stability.

[@kantdiego]

Sounds legit

[@Ojisan642]

98SE was the best and most stable version of Windows imo.

[@abcidy4957]

@@Ojisan642 actually windows 7 seems the best. I quite liked XP but any version below Windows 7 was just terrible. Windows 7 had great integration for internet and a cool theme.

[@HGAMES69]

Same shit happened with Vista

[@MaddTheSane]

Indeed. On TVTropes for Idiot Programming, they mention (surprise surprise) Windows ME, mentioning that it supported two driver models: The newer, NT-based DLLs and the legacy (introduced in Windows 2) VXD drivers. If you only used one or the other, the system was quite stable. But if you're one of the 90% that had to use a mix of both, hello BSODs.

[@papeleradereciclaje4375]

8:25 Early footage of Baby Joel destroying Windows ME

[@dashw]

*joel laughing uncontrolably*

[@memeicusgaming2197]

Joel? Like vegeslethor (or however the fuck you spell it) Joel?

[@papeleradereciclaje4375]

@@memeicusgaming2197 Vargskelethor Joel a.k.a. Swedish Vinny

[@jasinere35]

thats actually on the demo video on the programme disc that shows you what it can do but they dont tell you it had bugs that rear their heads when you least expect it

[@taimunozhan]

Windows ME was the first OS I used. I remember those days when having the OS crash only once per day was lucky. It is worth the hate. I remember being surprised at how smoothly *Windows 98* ran in comparison. I must admit the media player and Movie Maker were great, though.

[@kamikazeemcee]

Doesn't seem like Windows ME was that long ago, until you realize the baby in this video is a full adult now.

[@TheRatlord74]

I must have been very lucky with ME. I never had any issues with it. To be honest I have had more issues with my current win 10 set-up.

[@andrasbradacs6016]

Same here...

[@djpathum]

Yeah.... same here.... Initial win 10 is worst than even Vista and 1809 was pain in the ass.... had to switch back to 1803. still not sure want to upgrade to 1903 or not....

[@darrellbeard2799]

@@djpathum I just upgraded to 1903. Don't do it. Wait a bit, 1903 has bugs and more than just a few.

[@ikie18]

@@darrellbeard2799 It always has bugs or issues not matter what version.

[@pewdiepieisstillabadyoutub4490]

Impossible Perhaps the archives are incomplete

[@markusTegelane]

CE - Compact Embedded Me - Millennium Edition NT - New Technology

[@laharl2k]

Interestingly enough that spells CEMeNT.....what does that have to do with windows? I dont know.

[@Toonrick12]

That was kind of an injoke back in 2000 or so. Look up Windows CEMeNT on Google Images.

[@pierreuntel1970]

Mistake Edition

[@markusTegelane]

@@faxar1572 XP for eXPerience

[@Trabucco0]

98SE - Some Errors ME - More Errors XP - Expensive NT - Neandertal As far as I remember - XP was the first complete well running OS of this company of crap.

[@speed488]

I guess I'm one of the few people who has good memories of Windows ME. I actually liked that OS back then. I thought the new icon set gave the OS a more modern look.

[@protoretro1290]

I'm with you

[@etshArk87]

same, way ahead of it's time.

[@falazarte]

It alone. It worked great with me

[@mirek190]

For me win me was the best DOS based systems

[@njmwape1]

I really liked it

[@markbeiser]

I had a WinME CD burning party with some gamer friends a couple of months after it came out, and we had all reverted our systems back to Win98. It was that horrible...

[@SharkVaderYT]

Mark Beiser it was shit I remember

[@Twatical]

0:43 Windows'nt

[@BlindLibrary]

Yeah, really, it was called Windows.

[@procommentr]

@@BlindLibrary woooosh!

[@BlindLibrary]

I kid you not as to getting that exact computer -- with a screen reader whose crash expectations I'd soon realize...

[@BlindLibrary]

How funny; Windows 2000 Home Edition? Ouch! Epic failure; My mom only got endless hours of Solitaire and its variants truthfully out of the deal. So much for keeping up withblind friends. Windows XP Professional Service Pack3 would definitely be my real classic playground.

[@trapex6604]

Windowsn't

[@bendover460]

My first PC had windows ME. It actually wasn't that bad and I didn't get that many blue screens. In the early years of XP, ME was actually prone to less crashes lol...at least until SP1 for XP.

[@darkyassin]

Yes, I used Windows ME for at least 3 years before moving to Windows XP. I never had any blue screens or crashes. Infact it was very fast and boots in a matter of few seconds compared to Windows XP. I used to enjoy playing DOS games on Windows ME and do all sort of multimedia on it. My father is a Civil Engineer and he used to enjoy working on home design applications on Windows ME. There was no issue whatsoever with Windows ME. Don't listen to the people who say bad things about it because clearly they never used it or simply heard about it from other people and copied opinions

[@yootoob6003]

my 1st PC with GUI was Windows 95 and then 95 Plus then 98SE and then 2000 because ME is just 98 but even shittier and then i went to Win7 cos 2000 was less bloated than fucking bubble UI XP

[@CerealNumberWDW1984]

I never tried ME, because I did not have the chance to do that, but I can assume it is better than 98... which actually, after setup, caused either a BSOD, or Windows Explorer to go to jail (Explorer.exe performed an illegal operation error)

[@Lucatin]

I first read the thumbnail as "Why does Windows hate me?" for some reason.

[@lucassantossj]

Me to haha.

[@mr.freerobux2122]

XD

[@1d10tcannotmakeusername]

>why does windows hate me Because you don't want the updates (If you're talking about windows 10)

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

I actually liked ME, except for the fact I had to reinstall a dozen times a year!

[@navneer1]

Same with me.

[@doggylinux]

Yay

[@bensy1704]

Yea you probably liked vista too😂

[@maximumrisk2004]

I had a 4 GB Hard drive, so thats also a reason for me.

[@Frost-hi2ds]

wait a dozen times in a year is once in a month

[@corystwin707]

To be honest, they should have never developed ME and should have stuck with 2000.

[@li_tsz_fung]

Like have a Service Pack, or "Creators Update", to ship those Movie Makers, Conference Call and whatever they wanted to include in ME. They were writing that for XP anyway, XP is also NT-based

[@Yugophoto]

Agreed. 2000 was pretty solid.

[@dutchdykefinger]

yeah i think ME was no more than a plan B in case windows 2000 failed to bring the NT kernel to the home consumer.

[@xerzy]

At first I was going to be like "no, because if you think about it" but all the issues could have been avoided by better planning in advance, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@cjg8763]

2000 and XP were the best. Loved both of them.

[@fizzys26]

Windows ME was horrendous. I bought a computer with it back in the day, and thought the computer was junk. I spent 2 years with a slow computer that froze on me constantly. A friend installed Windows XP for me, and it was like a magically new computer in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t the computer, it was Windows ME. Garbage OS.

[@Firthy2002]

Same here. Machine shipped with Me and performed horribly. I put XP on it without making any hardware changes save for a new hard disk and it ran so much better than Me.

[@sugarbunify]

Same exact situation here. I loved XP so much because it fixed all the problems I had with Windows ME lol

[@sburton015]

Now what if you install Windows Vista on that same PC?

[@Darkfalz79]

Windows ME was fine after you disabled system restore and a couple of other "features". It ran better than 98 SE for me and was my primary OS for years.

[@Darkfalz79]

Er, well of course XP ran better than ME. ME is not for comparing to NT branch, but to 9x.

[@TheNightquaker]

"I get angry comments from Bing users" *proceeds to show normal comments that don't have any anger in them* Boi...

[@lukasz2284]

just like yours ;)

[@ablackbunny3149]

Anger is subjective

[@mashrien]

Am I the only one that cringed every he said "Me" and not "M", "E"? Those of us that lived through it referred to it by the letters, not the word 'me.' It'd be like calling XP "ksspppff" >,>

[@IntellitechStudios]

That is what it is officially called though. Kinda like how the iPhone X is often referred to as "ecks" when it's officially called "10"

[@kane4228]

Yep, me too!

[@kane4228]

Oh, well we know that about the iPhone. We (I) just like to call it "ecks" to piss of the Apple fanboys. Lol

[@rezakamyar]

Yes you are.

[@riseabove3082]

Always called it Me. Nobody in my IT world ever said it any differently. Look at the box, it's spelled as Me not ME.

[@exterminatusnow1264]

I still internally scream at the fact this was the first OS I used and the only one for a substantial part of my childhood, my goodness how i suffered...no child shouldn't experience so many bluescreens.

[@abhimaanmayadam5713]

Same here, but I only had 1 BSOD.

[@spacejaga]

Im totally on this boat. First PC and first OS.... God it was a shitshow.... I remember sometimes spending whole evening restarting PC trying to fix some stupid driver issue without any help (internet wasn't even 1/10000000 of help what it is now)... And trying to download a movie over night was something special (both internet speed and Me stability were huge factors). You would go to sleep and spend hours listening for ambient noise changes in PC behavior just to find in the morning the BSOD.... Maybe me being extremely tech savvy when it comes to windows related issues is thanks to my learning experience from back then... But God did I suffer for that....

[@wordart_guian]

As a 10-13 years old, i had about two bluscreens a week on a very low quality pc with Windows 7. Every single time, when the picture became blurry and the Blue screen appeared, i freaked out and thought it was my fault. Every. Single. Time.

[@acgm046]

Oh man, I only experienced the blue screen once with ME when I was a teen, and it was traumatizing! I thought I had broken it until my brother came to the rescue to restart it. I didn't know what it was and I thought it was a virus or something.

[@Nesseight]

@@wordart_guian When a program crashed on earlier versions of Windows, a prompt came up saying "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" The first time I ever saw that, I was expecting police to be knocking on the door or something. I don't know if that prompt still exists as I haven't seen it in years.

[@herrajoku75]

Windows Me - "Misunderstood Edition"

[@meltedchaos25]

Or Mistake Edition

[@toopienator]

"Man, that's pretty good Edition"

[@PoseMotion]

Misunderstood is correct. I ran ME just fine for years for retro gaming. It also did/run DOS games just fine too. Just had to have the right sound card. Yamaha YMF724 worked great on ME. I played both DOS and Direct X games just fine on ME. I remember a lot of people saying a certain game wouldn't run on ME but if you knew how ME worked and how to set up the game, it ran just fine. My old ME pc would still be in use but the mother board started misbehaving with the IDE connections which caused an error on boot. Hard drive is still fine and is used on my XP pc now as a second drive. May pick up another mobo sometime.

[@PoseMotion]

One more thing. Disable the network card on ME and it will be more stable. I don't think anyone or even Microsoft knew that ME's main issue was it had buggy drivers or something with network cards. Once I disabled the network card, ME was pretty solid. No more crashing or blue screen of death.

[@BilisNegra]

@@PoseMotion The thing is, ok, you can actually do without networking using ME today for retrogaming only. But back in the day? Wtf did it matter it being solid with no networking when you meant to use the OS in your daily driver PC?

[@Sylkis89]

it's so weird that you pronounce "ME" as..."me" instead of "EM-EE" or "Millenium"

[@KnuckleHunkybuck]

And yet he doesn't pronounce "OS" as "aws"...

[@Sylkis89]

@@KnuckleHunkybuck or ohs :D

[@CJBetcherMolandfreak]

Branding… no OS is branded as “Os” Windows ME was branded as “Me.” Microsoft shouldn’t have done that if they didn’t want to create confusion.

[@Judeinator9001]

I pronounce it as me

[@Knee-Lew]

@@KnuckleHunkybuck it would be OS-ome if it could be pronounced that way

[@cloverlief]

Me was created as a Stop Gap. Windows 2000 was supposed to be the next OS and migrate everything to NT. It was discovered during the development that DirectX was not going to work with Windows 2000 (called NT5 for most of it) without major changes. this was discovered around the last year before release. This meant there was going to be a delay in a consumer Windows release. So ME was hatched together as a quick new OS based on 98 and had some of the features they hoped to put in the next OS. XP basically fixed the consumer features and DirectX support and became the new OS to replace ME. Ah memories.

[@cloverlief]

@smakfu on Service pack 1 yes, but not at RTM

[@thegardenofeatin5965]

SO MANY MISTAKES have been made in the service of DirectX.

[@kane4228]

Yeah I heard the same crap and never understood it, as I got me a copy of 2K and played Baldur's Gate, Quake, Thief and a slew of other games no problem. Maybe it was the Service Pack as someone else said, and it was just good timing on my part when I finally bought/installed a copy?

[@KreigZimmerman]

Windows 2000 lacked USB support out the gate

[@kane4228]

@ Kreig Zimmerman - Lmao! No it didn't.

[@ucupumar]

I have used Windows ME at least 2 years, from 2001 until 2003. I didn't upgrade to XP because I only had Pentium 3. Years later, I was surprised to learnt it was widely hated. I didn't remember ever had any frustrating problem using Me. Maybe I visited by an alien everytime I crashed my desktop and some agent in blacks conveniently erased my memory.

[@KnuxKitsune]

I had a Pentium 2, and ran Win 98SE until I finally caved and tried XP on it in 2005. I had to tweak the performance settings a bit, but it ran okay even on a 400 MHz CPU

[@MaddTheSane]

You were one of the few lucky ones.

[@abhimaanmayadam5713]

No, one frustrating problem with WIndows ME. I hit check for updates on Realplayer (I didn't know any better) and I lost all my VXD files. Besides that, a lot was taken for granted when using that OS. Movie Maker, better media support, and my favorite, GENERIC USB DRIVERS. It was stable for me despite me having to reinstall, but other than that, It was a good OS. I agree it wasn't as stable, but ME was more of an upgrade to older systems, being based on 9x code.

[@kaneCVR]

In 2001 I installed winME for the first time on my K6-II. It ran OK, but it made it harder to run my DOS games and apps, so after a month or so I rolled back to 98SE. ME was a bit nicer for web surfing, but everything that ran on it could also run on 98SE, si there was no point in keeping it. The lack of Real DOS mode was a deal-breaker for me. In 2002 I got a 850MHz AMD Duron with a capable video card, and decided to try XP. It was a lot more stable and surfing the net was easier on XP, but again, it lacked DOS support, and to top it all off, I couldn't find working drivers for some of my devices (like my two Voodoo 2 cards). It was also noticeably slower then 98, even tough I had 512MB of ram witch was a lot back then. But I really liked XP so I decided to dual boot. i had XP on the 40GB drive that I got for my Duron, and 98SE on the 4GB drive I took out of my K6 - and everything was good. I ran 98SE up to 2004, then I upgraded to a Athlon XP 2600+ and increased the ram to 768 - that caused 98SE to fail to load (win9x ram limitation) so I was using XP exclusively on my main PC - BUT - I kept the 4GB HDD from my old PC witch I still had, and restored that to working condition so I could use DOS and 3DFX Glide games and apps hassle-free. To this day, I use two machines - my main PC (i7 3930k+GTX1080+16GB DDR3) runs windows 10, and my retro machine (QX6800+GTX280+4GB DDR2) runs winXP.

[@Frenziefrenz]

Same here. Actually I went back from XP to ME because XP was too unstable until SP1. :-) (A GPU driver issue, sure, but then again I'm sure drivers were the problem for anyone who had trouble with ME.)

[@DogeGaming26]

Windows'nt

[@procommentr]

MeMe Edition

[@Chicag-no]

Not Windows: broke Windowsn't: *_WOKE_*

[@mityaboy4639]

Windowsn't workstation :)

[@DogeGaming26]

@@procommentr The definitive edition.

[@st3sunusedacc]

... . . . AHHHHHH CRI

[@michaelmyers4484]

Damn. I always thought NT stands for 'New Technology', so the line on the startup screen of Windows 2000 reads: Based on New Technology Technology 😀

[@Youcantpostcommentsonthisrun]

Technology 2 lol

[@10minGameplay1]

What use are neat fetures if crashes all the time?? Remember being on a lan party at the time and a friend had his new and expensive computer with ME. He was lucky if he could play true a match without it crashing.

[@fullmetaljacket7]

It crashed a lot for people who used win9x drivers on winME. Problem is, finding proper drivers for winME was not easy depending on the hardware you were running. I had no problems with winME at the time, using proper drivers. It was an Atlhon Thunderbird 1.2Ghz on a Soyo K7VTA and a Voodoo 3 3000, if memory serves me right.

[@metalheadmalta]

I will agree with you 100%

[@MaximRecoil]

I bought my first PC in the summer of 2001 and it had WinMe factory-installed, so it was obviously using drivers designed for WinMe. It crashed or otherwise stopped working properly, about once every half hour or so. I installed XP in early 2002 and suddenly that PC was very stable.

[@ADreamerZ]

@@MaximRecoil In many cases manufacturers didn't actually create proper drivers, but marked 9x versions as working with Me. Without Windows Update many compatibility issues were left unresolved. From my experience 32 bit software worked a lot better on Me than on previous Windows. It were 16 bit games using expanded memory, that caused most problems and complaints about this system.

[@MaximRecoil]

@@ADreamerZ "In many cases manufacturers didn't actually create proper drivers, but marked 9x versions as working with Me." First of all, says who? Second, the motherboard has an Intel i810 chipset, which includes the audio and video controllers/chipsets. The drivers for everything, including the PCI dialup modem, were provided by Intel, which isn't a fly-by-night company. Third: I still have the PC and I installed Windows 98 SE on it a few days ago. None of the WinMe drivers worked; I had to find drivers specifically for Windows 98. That means the drivers that were installed from the factory were not Windows 98 drivers. "From my experience 32 bit software worked a lot better on Me than on previous Windows. It were 16 bit games using expanded memory, that caused most problems and complaints about this system." I didn't install any video games or any old software. I mainly went to Yahoo Chat and played chess on Yahoo Games. Windows would start acting screwy (e.g., extreme lag, partial unresponsiveness, corrupted rendering of the GUI) after about a half hour every time and I'd have to reboot. Also, Windows Me could rarely complete a disk defrag operation; some background process would almost always interrupt it and it would offer to start again. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware, because it did, and does, run perfectly with XP or 2K. I don't know how well it runs with 98 because I haven't actually used it much with that OS, but I haven't encountered any issues yet.

[@jasonmetcalfe4695]

Windows ME is actually pretty good when it comes to drivers... it's driverbase was so deep and wide that it could make up a working driver on the fly based on filenames, regardless of which version of anything the files were for... its a pity they didn't carry that bit forward... i still keep a copy of ME running today just for that kinda purpose

[@MichaelTakchuk]

wow the ending was pure gold!!!!! XD

[@toddfraser3353]

Exactly what good are the new features if the OS doesn’t run long enough to use them. Stability of ME compared to other OS at the Time such as Mac OS 9, Linux, Unix, and Windows 2000 was extremely lacking. Then there was security. We took an OS designed for a single use non connected computer and we hooked it to the internet, to make it worse broadband started to get popular. This made all the DOS based windows a Target.

[@Ometecuhtli]

To be fair a VM is not the ideal way to test an OS. Applications might have a difficult time running on time sensitive scenarios, some configurations have to be figured out to work properly, and it can be harder to isolate problems and be completely sure of what's causing it. My advice is to Install it on hardware of the time so you can begin to appreciate the full GOD-DAMN-AWFULNESS of Windows ME.

[@dr.mudr.farmaceutik7638]

He had his opinion, but he preferred to join the crowd. It's very modern today

[@DeadxBreadx]

@@dr.mudr.farmaceutik7638 It is very modern today

[@avert_bs]

@@dr.mudr.farmaceutik7638 ha

[@augustcelineiii946]

Windows ME was the first operating system I had on a home computer when I was a kid. RIP.

[@kornkernel2232]

Mine it was my first own PC, though I did experiencing using older Windows version including 3.1, 95, and 98 (not SE). Though as I remember it, Windows Me wasn't that bad. I did experience occassional crashes which probably partly my fault (removing USB devices while its in use, etc.). Though it was short-lived since I eventually upgrade to Windows XP just a year after. Movie Maker was great, but rendering videos back in those days takes a lot of time.

[@DogOnAShip]

Ah, the rage memories of all the Blue Screens of Death, In the middle of typing a school assignment and I get a message form a friend on MSN Messenger, click on the new message pop up and.....BSD, all my work just...gone, I punched my desk so hard my lava lamp fell off and smashed on the floor, I was so happy when XP came along.

[@ihateevilbill]

Im gonna assume you never used Windows ME at the time (I kinda get that, especially from the VM mention at the end ;) ). The hardware simply wasnt up to the new multimedia stuff. At the time I had a high end PC and it ran Windows 98. I had a dual boot at the time and the only reason I would load it up was for movie maker. The OS crashed all the bloody time. And when it wasnt crashing it was really unstable and extremely slow. Hardware drivers needed hacks etc to get working, and sometimes it was simply impossible and the old hardware had to be chucked (if staying with ME). You are right though, the way it was marketed, was too medium to high end users but even we didnt have the horsepower to run it well. Even the interface was slow due to the new multimedia content (chunky task bars, windows etc). The networking infrastructure also changed which meant that everything you knew from Win98 was basically not really true any more (as you say, it was based on NT with the next OS using it being Win2K) or it did hold true but microsoft in their infinite wisdom moved the new settings to different control panel apps. The difference under the hood also caused a shed load of games and applications etc to just not work anymore. Basically it was too early for the time. The next OS that built on the code, being aimed at us, the unwashed masses (XP) was unbelievably smooth (especially in beta phase), but that was basically because the CPUs and GPUs had come quite a way in those few years. My god ME was horrible, lol :)

[@JarrodCoombes]

I ran it at the time of release, and I recall have two major issue. 1. It was terrible at managing memory, it never freed RAM after use, so if you did not reboot it periodically it would crash. 2. On an AMD cpu there were issues with the network stack, so network throughput was very very low when compared to 98SE or 2k on the exact same hardware. So browsing the internet was terrible. Other than that, it was an OK OS.

[@ihateevilbill]

Sorry, I wasnt meaning to be cheeky, in case you thought that :) I hung about with another 3 guys and we were always trying to take it to the next level with regards to fps. At the time I had a monitor that did 1600x1200 at 100Hz. We all decided around the same time ME just didnt do what we needed. Our benchmarks were usually quake 3 and counterstrike and both games took a hit of about 15-20% over 98. That probably biased us pretty badly ;) And, as you mention, the memory management was terrible.

[@DKL997]

XP was based on NT, not 9x. In fact, XP identifies itself internally as "NT 5.1". This is why it worked so well.

[@ihateevilbill]

Yup, I already said that :) "The next OS that built on the code, being aimed at us, the unwashed masses (XP) was unbelievably smooth"

[@DKL997]

@@ihateevilbill it sounded like you were referring to the 9x code.

[@emdotrod]

Man the Windows ME was basically the first actual OS that I'm using. It's okay for the most part and I don't think it deserves all the hate

[@Pasi123]

I upgraded from 98 to ME on my first PC and I never had any problems with it

[@ag3498]

I never had any major issues with ME and to me it was just as stable (or unstable) as 98 SE. It was until more recently that I realized that so many people had so much hate for ME.

[@RacerX-]

By the time WinME came out I had been building DOS and Windows PCs for many years. While it was short lived at the time no Windows OS could boot up as fast as ME. I still have a PIII I built from that era and it happily runs ME for the legacy games of the time. It wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Most of the people hating on it were people that probably didn't even use it.

[@daishi5571]

If it was the 1st OS you used, then you probably didn't have a library of software that required access to DOS.

[@tizutitandula5638]

Windows me is my favourite windows

[@JohnnnyGash]

My experience on WinME. Crashes on desktop running nothing. Crashes while using any software.

[@markwiering]

Are you really experiencing this? If so, I presume either a driver incompatibility, or something is seriously wrong with your hardware. I also have Windows ME installed on one of my computers. It boots fast and it runs almost all the games I want it to run. With the exception of when I inserted an unreadable CD-ROM, I have not experienced crashes so far with Windows ME. However, even Windows XP crashed when I inserted that same unreadable CD-ROM in the computer, so Windows XP isn't any more stable than Windows ME in this regard.

[@skaterhaube6026]

@@markwiering No considering most of the comments are saying they've had problems with the os, you pretty much just got lucky.

[@markwiering]

I think this is not a matter of luck, but a matter of compatibility. My older computer that runs Windows ME, is designed to run either Windows ME, either Windows 2000 Professinoal. It's made for those operating systems, so of course the drivers match. What some people did, was installing Windows ME on a computer that was never designed to run Windows ME and didn't even have drivers for it. Instead, they installed Windows 98 drivers on their Windows ME installation, which worked (initially), but also gave compatibility problems and ultimately, resulted in crashes. Another interesting note: any program could make changed to operating system files, like DirectX, DLL files, built-in drivers for basic hardware support etcetera. This meant that after installing a certain application, the OS could become unstable, could stop supporting hardware that it supported before and would crash without doing anything fancy (like, running Microsoft Paint). This is something that all Windows 9x versions (95, 98, ME) suffered from. I think that, if you run Windows ME on a computer that is designed to run Windows ME, combined with the fact that you haven't installed anything on it, yet, the Windows ME will run stable. That doesn't mean that there aren't more things about Windows ME that I dislike. For example: 1. The shortcuts Ctrl + Shift + Esc, as well as Ctrl + Alt + Delete, don't give me the task manager. Windows ME doesn't seem to have a task manager showing which processes are running and how much RAM, page file and processing power are being used. This, I consider somewhat uncomfortable, especially for someone who likes to squeeze the maximum performance out of older computers. 2. The default media player of Windows ME says that 80% of all my MP3 files are corrupted, even though Windows XP and Puppy Linux run them just fine. 3. The newest version of VLC Media Player that is said to still being able to run on Windows ME (without KernelEx), doesn't actually run on Windows ME. 4. After trying to install Puppy Linux alongside Windows ME through the Windows installer of Puppy Linux, the computer doesn't give me the option to boot Puppy Linux at startup. Instead, I stare at a black screen for 20 seconds and then it jumps to the boot screen of Windows ME. Before this, the computer immediately jumped to the boot screen, meaning that booting Windows ME has become significantly slower. I will fix this, someday, but for now, it is what it is. To be honest, I consider Windows ME (as well as Windows 95 and 98) to be inferior to Windows 2000 Professional in all possible ways. If it wasn't for some old games that only work on Windows 9x that I like to play, I would have installed Windows 2000 Professional on that computer instead.

[@skaterhaube6026]

@@markwiering That's still a problem of the OS if it's only compatible for certain computers and gives a better reason to why it was so shitty compared to everything else.

[@markwiering]

I don't know... You might also run into compatibility issues if you use Windows Vista drivers for your Windows 8.1 installation... Drivers are very specific about the OS they need to be installed on. Sometimes, they are even service pack specific. My old computer also has driver available for Windows 98, but Windows 98 doesn't have native USB support, so I wouldn't be able to use my USB mouse on it out-of-the-box. It also boots significantly slower, since it boots MS-DOS first. In terms of stability, game compatibility and gaming performance, it's the same as Windows ME, so I simply chose for Windows ME out of laziness (not wanting to first attach a PS/2 mouse to then manually having to install the USB drivers...)

[@Trevokable]

I remember in 2004 I managed to install Windows ME on the 36 gig 10k rpm Raptor. It took less than 5 seconds booting to go from showing the Windows logo to the desktop. I was super amazed at the boot speed, then as soon as I moved the mouse I got the blue screen of death and my excitement turned into disappointment.

[@HouseOfFunQM]

The reviews are slightly skewed, because it generally is fine immediately after install, and after doing a little bit of work on it. The problems start when you install a whole load of software, or any updates - then it absolutely falls to pieces. Bad library versioning meant that Windows 98 versions of i.e. DirectX would overwrite the Me versions, making it really unstable.

[@segoiii]

i never had to reinstall a Microsoft OS so often because of constant appearing crashes than Windows ME.

[@realGBx64]

I reinstalled it every 3 months

[@PmmSoares]

@@realGBx64 that was my life with XP

[@jens3545]

@@PmmSoares same here lol

[@claycassin8437]

I just used System Restore. That's what it was there for. Never had to reinstall the whole OS. I of course was smart enough to do a clean install initially, instead of an upgrade. Only noobs did upgrades(or "repair" installs), and got what they deserved.

[@silkwesir1444]

that was with all of the 9x versions though, ME being on the more stable end of the scale (still bad compared to today, but much better than say the first edition of Windows 98). I would rank them in terms of stability, from best to worst, as such: 1. 98 SE / 2. ME / 3. 95c / 4. 95b / 5. 98 / 6. 95a

[@Ghennesph]

I got more bluescreens from running Windows 10 on a microsoft product than ME on a Dell

[@itsjohn-wv8en]

I always wonder what was the purpuse of MS to develop Windows ME. Based on the research I have done MS was working on Neptune and ME at the same time at end 1999. Wasn't Neptune supposed to the Home Edition of Windows 2000. I mean Windows 2000 Professional, which finalized that same year already already itself was very home user friendly and compatible with many Windows 9X programs and games. In addition, MS already had put out Windows 98se that same year.. can someone please explain

[@evgenim1]

Windows XP it was revolution.

[@boocaliffo3024]

Yes, but untill the service pack it was also the BSOD party.

[@yumri4]

@@boocaliffo3024 Though its kernel did survive until it was remade in windows 8 which 8.1 and 10 both still use. I am unsure if it is a sad thing or a happy thing that System32 is still 32-bit while having another being WinSxS for 64-bit parts. I get that the ability to run 32-bit code on 64-bit OSes is good and all but when is the time when 32-bit emulation on a full 64-bit OS is quicker than having 32-bit parts of a 64-bit OS?

[@sinephase]

people hated XP when it first released too. it wasn't until SP2 that it became decent.

[@thomaswest2583]

Windows 7 is still better.

[@yumri4]

@@thomaswest2583 i agree and even windows 10 uses the same kernel as windows 7 used just reworked a bit and with extensions to support the newer APIs so some little more code but moving the code that doesn't need to be in the kernel into the OS code instead so it is a yes but no thing

[@50PullUps]

I thought the NT stood for New Technology

[@benjaminfacouchere2395]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Naming #TheMoreYouKnow

[@MystPlaysGamesMPG]

I thought it stood for Networking since Win NT 3.5 was the first to come with IE and Networking tools built in

[@supbrotv]

N-Ten is for internal use, New Technology is for marketing.

[@NinTenAlan]

While running my Windows ME VM, the sound randomally crashes

[@stevehewitt8791]

You had to have used it for an extended time to understand just how frustrating the crashes were. It would crash all the time, then not boot for a bit, then be fine for a week. then crash every hour. Hopeless haha!

[@deusexaethera]

I had a computer with Windows ME. Yes, it bluescreened a lot, but only slightly more than Windows 98 did, and unlike Windows 98 it had System Restore which saved my ass at least a dozen times. Nowadays Windows is so stable that System Restore is _almost_ completely unnecessary, but Windows ME benefited greatly from it.

[@BRICK8492]

I've been working in IT for 2 years now. I can confidently say that system restore is still very much alive and useful, trust me lol

[@deusexaethera]

​@@BRICK8492: www.google.com?q=define%3Aalmost. ;)

[@deusexaethera]

@@teostav8872: Yes, there were a lot of problems with WinME computers. But given the choice between running Win98 or WinME, I'd much rather run WinME -- and that's exactly what I did. As for dealing with malware, that's what McAfee Stinger is for -- free professional-grade portable software that removes malware and can be run in Windows Safe Mode, or even command-line if you know how. Saved my ass a bunch of times.

[@SinaelDOverom]

For me it BSODed much less than '98

[@SgtAl]

My experience is exactly the same as yours. I had a mid range desktop that came with ME installed and in two years I had maybe a half dozen blue screens and overall, even though most people didn't believe me, I had a fairly positive experience with Windows ME.

[@SquirrelMonkeyCom]

100K!!! Congrats!

[@jolleh7105]

:D

[@prdarlin]

16 likes and only one reply? How?

[@markkilkelly8033]

So, would the first version of Windows 8 have been better or worse? I had 8.1 for a brief time and thought it was ok.

[@tszili]

Actually I have to thank this OS, that i've learnt installing/reinstalling an OS -> got to know the PC ... so I can only say... Thanks for this OS Microsoft! :D

[@nspcrazy1122]

What do you want from Me?!

[@bayglman]

What do you want from Me?!

[@reecebacon5574]

@@Ubersnuber lol

[@thegreatboto]

Meh. My eMachine I picked up at the time for myself came with a copy of ME and it ran great on the 800Mhz Celeron, 128mb of RAM and the PCI Radeon I had. It also came with an upgrade license for XP when it became available, which I definitely used. Though, my friend who bought a computer that came with ME anywhere between 6 months to a year ahead of me had an entirely different experience with ME. His experience was much more stereotypical of what you hear about WinME.

[@dalemuir1105]

That's exactly what I had!

[@Danny-wv8ec]

Ahh , eMachines ! I sold dozens of second hand eMachines when i used to work at an IT shop when i was a teen .

[@Pacmannion]

Are you me? Because that's what we had. Minus the Radeon. ME started out good but went downhill fast.

[@thegreatboto]

The fun of cheap, mass-produced machines. :)

[@Jonathan-uq5xc]

I'd be willing to bet I had the same PC. A T1801 if I'm not mistaken. I didn't know anything about computers then and let the XP upgrade expire...much to my disappoint when I found out it would stop the constant blue screens.

[@appleleptiker]

I never had Problems with ME. Like literally everyone was just ranting about how bad it was but I never had any Problems with it. For me it was just as stable as XP.

[@sosopwsi829Jjw9]

You had 2000 and thought it was ME I bet

[@scajk29]

Nah, I doubt it.

[@appleleptiker]

@@sosopwsi829Jjw9 No. It was Windows ME. I didn't have any sort of NT operating system until Windows XP. Also, I'm not stupid.

[@appleleptiker]

@@scajk29 You can do that. But that doesn't change that I never had problems with Windows ME.

[@ancapjack1837]

LMFAO the ending made the whole video. Literally had me cackling in my back yard. I'm sure my neighbors are worried X'D

[@queenawesomegaming7475]

Congrats on 100k!

[@higorguedes4413]

7:54 how to build a nuke

[@HumphreyGaming]

haha, "It's all right here in your fingerTITS"

[@NeedForSpeed.2004]

3 mins later: how to escape the FBI

[@SudaNIm103]

My two cents: 1. It's difficult now to appreciate how significant discontinuing support for Real-Mode DOS was. It needed to be done, but rendered tons of legacy 3rd party hardware and software incompatible. This was going to create problems, generate user resentment and I think MS was wise to rip that bandaid off prior to the release of Windows XP. I think a great deal of the Me negativity stems from issues related to this change but that was kind of the point. 2. Windows Me was also the first version of Windows that really delivered on the promise of "plug & play" though lots of legacy hardware simply wasn't supported, hardware that was supported often just worked. Me was likely the first time many users had ever been able to use hardware like a new printer or digital camera and not need to install manufacturer drivers from a disk. (It was still a frequent occurrence but finally not an expectation) In fact I'd argue that it was Me's extensive driver library that led to the proliferation of the just "format and reinstall" Windows mode of tech support that really become normalized around that time. Prior to Me there was much greater reluctantance to wipe and reinstall purely because of how difficult driver support could be.

[@zzco]

98 supported Plug'n'Play. That wasn't the issue. I think they tried shoehorning in too much NT code to a primarily 9x codebase with very little QA or time to fix the incompatibilities that caused. Thus, you get a graphical environment that was about as stable as a house of cards built on top of a pile of swiss cheese.

[@ViorelIanasi]

How come you have screenshoots with articles posted back in 2000 with social network buttons such as Facebook and Twitter?

[@ChronosTrickMaster]

Awesome video! I like every video of yours but my favourite videos are when you review old and retro tech. Keep up the great work!

[@elijahpepe]

Windows ME ME ME! I WANT TO BE LOVED FOR ONCE!

[@xerzy]

Windows MeMeMe? 👀

[@procommentr]

Windows MeMe Edition?

[@TheDustin151]

Growing up we had Windows Me on our computer. All I remember is it seemed to never work right and you always had to reboot.

[@Quadrenaro]

Windows ME is pretty nostalgic for me. I don't know the specs off the top of my head, but that old brick my family had was pretty powerful for it's day. It was on that old desktop that planted roots for pc gaming. Anyone remember RealArcade?

[@leonkernan]

I paid for a boxed upgrade version of that dog of an OS and it still hurts....

[@laharl2k]

In my experience, WinME ran like shit, it was unstable, system restore didnt fix shit and it wouldnt last a few months before having to reinstall. After a while i stayed in Win98SE, it worked and didnt have the "explorer.exe shat itself so not press the reset button" messege and warcraft 2 worked. Then i went to XP, tried 2000 for a while until XP worked stable, and then Win7 which im still on today because of solidworks. (insert 14 years of linux between XP and win7 because XP was shit anyways by linux standards. I only had to reinstall linux trice in those 14 years and it was because of upgrading to newer distros)

[@CommodoreFan64]

That was my experience with ME, I was living with my then girlfriend who was also helping out her brother who had been sick in the hospital, and it seemed every month I was having to reinstall ME on his machine, and after the 4th or 5th time I was done with ME, and just found my CD-R of 98SE, and until XP came out we stuck with that. Now I only have one machine left on Windows(not counting to retro dual boot Win 98SE, and XP Dell I'm rebuilding) running Windows 10 that dual boots Xubuntu 18.04 64bit, and most of the time I find myself using Xubuntu unless I run across stupid DRM issues like when trying watch a WWE PPV on my computer then I boot into Win 10(I'm not a fan of virtual machines I like running on actual hardware to get all the performance I can).

[@SianaGearz]

The Windows explorer in 2000 and ME leaked GUI handles on release, probably both of them, certainly the one in ME. Except on Windows 2000, the handles were per-process and there were 10000 worth of them per process, so the bug had no practical relevance there, but on 9x including ME, it was 1200 global. So you would make the complete system unusable and bring it to the brink of complete crash just by changing directories in Windows Explorer a few dozen to a couple hundred times. That was of course not the whole extent of pretty remarkable bugs in Windows ME. Added to that the merely cosmetic removal of DOS or reboot to DOS - killing off the compatibility with games people still played with no real benefit, padding the bullet point feature set by integrating software that was already made freely available to Windows 98 users, and driver model issues. It's a release of Windows which was not only useless, it wasn't harmless, it was an unpleasant experience for perhaps the majority of people, but it would take people weeks or months to become disappointed, while the initial press coverage was likely written under time pressure like it usually is and didn't take actual long term use into account.

[@laharl2k]

@@SianaGearz not sure the exact config or if it was something in the filesystem or how i formated it but there was a time i recall were i installed ME and it threw the "explorer.exe blahblahblah illegal instruction on address blahblah" on the very first boot. And then it was very unstable, explorer would crash very frequently, much more than normal (minutes and at random). Now that i think about it maybe it was the way folders, file names and shit i had on the other drive was put. Maybe it was some oscure bug which i happened to stumble uppon by chance but in any case i said fuck it and went back to 98SE. I think that was the last time i tried to use ME. The other times explorer.exe would crash after say some hours but ive had win98se installs fail because it didnt like how i formated my C drive so maybe it was a sum of factors, say bad format, too much porn with very long names and glitched corrupted files with invalid names (i once had a disk die but the filesystem got corrupted before and had lots of folders with broken names with / and other invalid characters in the names and even files with no name......) That time was special.

[@thedungeondelver]

I worked in enterprise-level IT at the time ME came out, and it hit around the time 2000 did. God I loved Win2000. For the time it ran everything I wanted it to in terms of games and multimedia, had the USB support, Fat32 support, etc., I was in hog heaven. ME is the one MS Operating System I never used (outside of DOS before 3.3).

[@laharl2k]

thedungeondelver Win2000 was slow and heavy but it was rock solid. If it wasnt for programs no longer supporting win2k and it missing usefull features on XP i would habe never had any reason to upgrade to XP.

[@lanatrzczka]

As others pointed out, you should have included system restore in this video. As a developer at the time, Windows 2000 reigned supreme in our office. But when someone showed me that ME had system restore, well, that was something new for the Windows product. I'm not so sure system restore is used as much these days, but at the time it seemed like a milestone.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I agree, there are some improvements in Me, especially in the Plug&Play and multimedia department. It's not horrible, but being stuck between 98 SE, 2000 and the shortly after released XP, it doesn't really has a place, even on terms of retro computing. Had it in use for some time back in the day, and it was fine. The biggest benefit over 98 I can remember was the thumbnail view in the explorer :D

[@AndyGilleand]

I never understood the hate. ME was basically 98 patched with some of the features most people associate with XP. I ran it for over a year as my main OS and I rarely remembered any crashes or driver issues, at least no more than I had experienced in 98 or XP.

[@jontmusiteur55]

Same here. I had to disable some of the services, but once I'd done that it ran reasonably well on the K6 I was still running at the time.

[@leereed219]

+1. I ran it on a K6 2 450, and loved it. I had family that would bitch about it constantly, but I never had any more problems than windows 98, which was long in the tooth by then, at least to me. I do remember 2000 professional being a more solid OS, but the media and visual upgrades that ME had over 2000 was enough for me to keep running ME. Of course when XP came along that all changed. To this day I maintain XP is the best OS from windows ever.

[@Ken.-]

I had to reboot about 5-6 times a day after a while of using ME. XP on the other hand still runs fine for me.

[@UplifterMan]

@@jontmusiteur55 Oh what a nostalgia K6 with WinMe

[@jontmusiteur55]

@@leereed219 I eventually migrated from WinMe to 2K to XP, 2K was good for stability but not quite as visually polished, and I thoroughly agree that XP was really good from SP2 onwards. Every Windows since has been meh to unusable. I'm on Linux now, have been for the last 10 years or so.

[@cjg8763]

Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP were the greatest Windows OSes, IMO.

[@joeblow8593]

Windows XP Pro was the workhorse for well over a decade

[@Brobak]

I tried installing Windows Me on 2 different systems back in the day, both times ended in bsod before the installation was complete, so I just gave up on the OS.

[@treehugger3615]

All I cared back then was which OS was best for video games: Win98 SE ---> Best, very stable WinMe ---> Buggy, random crashes Win2000 ---> Nope. Many games did not run at all on this platform. Kids hated it.

[@markwiering]

Games that were made in the era before Windows 2000 and Windows XP don't always run on Windows 2000 Professional (sometimes, they do), but games that were made in the year 2000 and later do run on Windows 2000 Professional.

[@m9078jk3]

Most PC Games that ran on Windows XP (requires DRM activation) would run on Windows 2000 Professional with a few exceptions however many games of the 9.x era wouldn't run on either Windows 2000 or XP. On the positive side Windows 2000 like ME,98SE,98 or 95 didn't require activation

[@markwiering]

@@m9078jk3. The activation part is the worse! I possessed a genuine copy of Windows XP, so I installed that copy of Windows XP on my computer. Just like every version of Windows, I had to type in the serial code. With Windows XP, however, having an Internet connection was required to be able to keep using Windows XP. I hated this, since I don't always have an Internet connection, but I activated it and thought that that was it. It wasn't. Every single time I changed something about my computer, like my RAM or CD-drive, Windows XP required re-activation. It was so bad that even disabling some system services could trigger the "Please re-activate Windows XP!" After this, I have never installed a genuine copy of Windows XP again on any computer. Instead, I used the pre-activated version from The Pirate Bay, since that is the only version of Windows XP that doesn't nag about re-activation all the time.

[@m9078jk3]

@@markwiering Microsoft perhaps corrected that issue later on. I didn't jump on the XP bandwagon until the year 2004 as I was quite happy with Windows 2000. In fact I found a way to trick Windows so a newer motherboard with a later CPU on a later socket could be used in certain circumstances if one had hardware failure. Microsoft added DRM activation because many people were pirating Microsoft Windows and/or installing it on multiple machines against their EULA.

[@markwiering]

@@m9078jk3. Windows 2000 Professional is my absolute favourite of all time. It's by far the best operating system that Microsoft has ever created. It's elegant, user-friendly and extremely stable. In fact, Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 crash more often than Windows 2000 Professional. The only reason why I ever upgraded to Windows XP (which was a painful decision), was because Windows 2000 Professional didn't support my new external hard drive of 2000 GB, which I desperately needed to store my films and games on, since my internal hard drive (40 GB) was too small to store everything I needed. If it wasn't for that, I would still run Windows 2000 Professional on that computer. In fact, I am considering downgrading one of my older computers to Windows 2000 Professional, simply because I like Windows 2000 Professional more than Windows XP.

[@lambition]

Somehow I never had problem with ME. I did not see bluescreen any more than I did with Windows 98. I preferred Windows 2000 over ME anyway because I didn't really have any program that had compatibility issues at the time.

[@theuncommonn00b12]

I wish windows Video editor was still a thing

[@Zourkoskey]

If you search around on the internet you can still find it. Just google search for windows movie maker download. I still use it to this day, works fine on Windows 7. It's stupid that Microsoft stopped supporting movie maker though.

[@RyanKarolak]

ME introduced a lot of features and bundled programs that we still see to this day, but it was rushed out. As a power user I also disliked that I couldn't exit to DOS. It having stability and reliability problems were what made me move away from it to 2000 and XP though. During that time I just used 2000 (later XP) and duel-booted with 98SE for the times I ran into programs that didn't run well in the NT systems.

[@kramasnu3826]

Why did you change the logo to have Millennium misspelled with only one "n" throughout most of the video?

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Me wasn't *terrible*, it was just incompatible with a lot of things at the time. If you had a then-brand-new computer, with all new hardware, and all new software, it could be quite usable. But if you wanted to plug in that printer from a year and a half earlier? Good luck. I hope the manufacturer provided updated drivers!

[@QLTD]

Windows 8 is the reincarnation of Windows Me

[@seancdaug]

Windows 8's problems were mostly down to its ill-conceived and half-baked UI changes (a problem reduced but not removed by Windows 10). It was mostly stable and reliable once you got past its significant UI/UX issues. That's quite different from Windows Me, IMO, which had a pretty decent (for the time) UI (carried over almost whole cloth from Windows 2000), but was _massively_ unstable and flat-out broke compatibility with a lot of older programs. I think the better comparison is with Windows Vista. Like Me, Vista had some OK UI changes (although it'd be polished up substantially for Windows 7), but the changes to the driver format meant that a lot of hardware was poorly supported (if at all) and the system could suffer from some major stability problems as a result.

[@eduardoavila646]

10 is tbh

[@seancdaug]

Oh good lord, yes. If nothing else, Vista is built on a considerably stronger base of Windows NT/Windows XP. Compared to Windows Me, it's rock solid.

[@SONGOKU02]

I thought vista was this. XD

[@TheDaniell1210]

Vista RTM was Windows ME 2.0

[@Scheisseistnass]

So my first computer i owned was running on Windows ME. And yeah the graphics card died - while browsing the web with good old Mozilla Firefox 2

[@johnDingoFoxVelocity]

Actually the only real problem that occurred with that o s was a faulty version of the fat thirty two n t f s partition software. Which is why it received the code name windows many errors

[@n0xx295]

Windows ME blue screen a lot... But so did the entire 9X line, people just remember those more fondly out of nostalgia and bias.

[@seancdaug]

Compared to modern, Windows NT-based versions of Windows, sure: every Windows 9X release was horribly unstable. But Windows Me tended to be significantly worse than the others unless you got exceedingly lucky with its spotty-at-best hardware support. And, even then, its reliance on the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time Internet Explorer 5.5 didn't help it any (updating it to IE 6 helped quite a bit, at least in terms of stability).

[@Stealthcola]

Is that Chex Quest music in the background???

[@maleiaty]

Haha, yea, I came in the comments to see if anyone else caught that!

[@interlace84]

Sidenote: There's a simple patch downloadable at majorgeeks to "unhide" the real-mode dos boot option.. turns out that whole process wasn't changed a single bit compared to '98. ME's kernel is a monster. I love it.

[@TVperson1]

For some reason trying to run Windows 98SE on Vmware with my Ryzen system doesn't work, but ME does for some reason? Go Figure

[@KrazyCouch2]

Why do you keep switching from Windows Me to Windows ME?

[@rycedj3319]

Because it’s Windows Millennium Edition.

[@fb5601]

I thought Microsoft released both Windows 2000 and ME because they both wanted to celebrate the fact it's a whole new millennium, and also wanted Windows with a cool name like 2000

[@jeweljardine8163]

Ji

[@rollercoastermaniac2]

As someone who used both 98 and ME, 98 was MEs incredibly stable brother. And that's really saying something right there.

[@Mr.Plant1994]

It’s also good to note that I’m pretty sure most windows Me models were sold with a webcam. Maybe not every version, but of everyone I know who got on the me train had one included with their system.

[@harukaru84]

WinME ran perfectly for me, I was only using for internet, (microsoft chat, net-meeting, etc), minimal gaming, and listening my audio CDs, never experienced blue screens of doom with them. Remember when SONY music decided to lock few of their releases in a way that you couldn't play them on a computer? Well guess what I COULD play them on WinME ahahah (It's sad I didn't rip them then because after upgrading to xp those 2 CDs never played on my computer anymore ;_; ) my favourite thing about ME was the desktop themes that changed EVERYTHING from the desktop icons to the cursor. I miss having a little worm as a cursor ahahha

[@amiel3159]

you should try running an emulation of Windows ME and moving the music files over to Windows ME, see if they work.

[@harukaru84]

@@amiel3159 nahh no need, I got a cd player a long time ago after that, besides it's just one CD now, the other 2 play on computer now as Sony decided to patch them or something.

[@thedungeondelver]

Side-bar: remember when Sony went Ape-shit and tried to sue a guy for explaining how to stop their rootkit from running on PCs off of music CDs? (You did it by holding down Shift when you put the CD in, thus disabling the CD's ability to auto-play).

[@fannyglimpse7308]

@@thedungeondelver certainly do. won't have anything from Sony in the house for that reason.

[@HK_808]

Nt 5.0 beta had the coolest startup sound ever

[@diamondarrow4567]

jesus christ it's the microsoft version of the THX sound

[@captainmagma566]

I used to want my own computer when I was younger. I wanted a laptop with Windows ME on it even though we had a desktop with XP on it. What was I thinking?

[@protoretro1290]

Windows ME was actually pretty stable as long as you don't use any drivers made for windows 98.

[@kh_trendy]

I had a friend in high school that had a computer running ME. They would periodically go offline on MSN or AIM, then come back a few minutes later. Turns out, their computer would BSOD every 15-20 minutes and they had just accepted it.

[@RedTroPc]

lmao

[@EvlEgle]

1) its not Windows me its Windows ME as in M.... E

[@smugshrug]

Millenium Edition

[@mimi4plus3]

Windows M-I-S-T-A-K-E E-D-I-T-I-O-N

[@lukatombraider12]

Robert Tanksley Is that a reference to Family Guy episode when they were trying to win an Emmy? :)

[@BlindLibrary]

As in Millennium Edition. I jokingly call it Windows 2000 Home Edition. Granted not using the NTFS file system.

[@windowsme3006]

@@mimi4plus3 (sigh) Frick. You're One Of Those Pepole, Too..

[@NuDimon]

I know I'm in the minority, but ME worked really well for me. So much that I used it over SE and XP until SP1 for XP came out. I didn't look back after that.

[@stephenhunter70]

You think your in the minority I'm the only person I know who has installed and used 2000 pro (client version) Otherwise I skipped both and went straight to eXtra Problems

[@-SundayWolf]

I can jump that - I used Me till Sp2 came out. And probably would continue using Me even longer, but my new video editor wouldn't support "such an old system". I loved Me and never could understand why people hate it

[@kilajuy]

always skip an OS from MS. that's how the old addage goes.. right?

[@thegardenofeatin5965]

I miss the oblong aesthetic from the late 90's and early 2000s. Everything now is just a big black slab of glass, I want things that have color and shape back.

[@lordcrayzar]

I thought the title was “why does Windows hate me”

[@32BitLink]

I really like windows vista fight me

[@thefrench8847]

At least Vista is XP on steroid

[@mrcyberpunk]

Vista after service packs was ok. Vista Launch was 100% garbage and there's no way you can defend it, it had very similar issues that Windows ME had where drivers wouldn't load properly and DirectX 10 when it first shipped was a buggy horrendous mess.

[@EpicB]

I never used Vista much but I've heard it got better after the service packs and hardware specs caught up. I had a lot more experience with Windows 7. I've heard even XP was pretty buggy at launch.

[@melihcelik9797]

If you have bought a brand new comğuter that comes with a decent version of Vista (Home Premium or better), it actually worked very well. Since companies added more harware than they did to anything else for the vista. BUT, if you had a computer that run windows xp, upgrading to vista was devil itself. Heck, even devil is more innocent than that. Only place where it didn't crash was installation of it. Every. Single. Day. I heard that from SP1, vista was really good at even old hardware but I waited one more year an switched to windows 7

[@marlon.8051]

vista is ok

[@Superplay64]

My first PC ran Windows ME. I don't remember having many issues with it though, but maybe that's because my dad had custom built it, so it might have had higher-end hardware. Biggest issue I ever had was some bug in recent years that would cause the Hard Drive to quit reading once it hit the desktop; reinstall fixed it, and currently it still runs fine (sometimes I even use it as a mild spaceheater).

[@johnuser5162]

The only reason ME would have to be unstable is that drivers from 98 may not work correctly(DOS 8 v. DOS 7.1).