I want to know why everyone hates Windows ME? Also what is the difference between it and 98 besides the IE? LOL just curious about your opinions.

ME crashes a lot. The wizards at Microsoft took out the Sytem File Checker (it's back in XP) and replaced it with an automatic version that is supposed to automatically replace damaged system files. They took out access to the underlying DOS, even though the system still runs on DOS. They kept the outdated FAT32 filesystem that is far less stable than NTFS, which has been along since the invention of Windows NT. They added a number of dumb wizards that always open and make everything take so much longer, particularly since so many ME systems are on still-slow computers. (Most under the 1ghz processor speed.) They tied some things together so that disabling something to keep the computer from freezing removes other important things with it. All in all, it was an attempt to build a better operating system than Win 98SE, with only four obvious improvements, so that they could have a new operating system to attract customers and make money. But because of the obvious problems and rejection by seasoned Windows users, they never really fixed it and didn't waste time supporting it very well.

On its good side, ME has a better disk defragmenter than 98.

There are two main Windows families - the NT family and the FAT family. The FAT filesystem was used in Windows 95, 98, and ME. The NTFS (New Technology File System) was used in NT, NT Server, Windows 2000, 2003 Server, and XP. It uses a little more space, but has more protective redundancy.

XP came along and really was an improvement in operating systems because it combined the usefulness of the home operating systems with the filesystem of the stronger business versions of Windows. (Some people who upgraded from an earlier OS still have the FAT32 filesystem in XP.)

For it's "improvements," ME is considered to be far less stable than 98.

Or in other words ME was the most buggiest operating system made by Microsoft. Although it was pretty fast.

Ooops!

In the imortal words of Gilda Radner..."never mind".

I thought that it was stupid to keep the FAT32 files system since NT way back to 4.0 uses NTFS. (4.0 was way baq b4 98 lol.) ME was nice I thought never had a problem with it but everyone says that it is bad. Stupid MS messing things up again lol. Look at my sig it is tru bout ME i guess.

I ran ME on three different computers for almost three years, and experienced minimal problems from the Operating System, which I found to be quite stable. Now that I have installed XP, I do admit it seems to be an improvement over ME.
Regards,
John

Many polls on many forums have been created with the topic, "what's the worse OS ever?".

ME always comes out on top as the "Worse, Ever".

For an old DOS efficienado ME really sucked, by eliminating the Shell to DOS feature that was present in all former versions of Windows, back to Win-95.
You couldn't just do a sysedit to alter your Autoexec.bat file or any other system file for that matter. ME made changing any of those files a whole lot harder. NOT impossible, just a lot harder.

Yes, the ME defrag was a quantum leap in efficiency. They removed about 50 bytes of the old 98 defrag and made the program run about 10x faster. I still share that program will all my 98 users.
I guess they just removed some "redundancy". It still looks the same.

Then there's that totally useless "System Restore" thingy......
Now there's a real DOG for you. If something happens so that windows can't boot up, its totally worthless.

I've placed the "ME Restore Remover" program on My Download Site
for those who want to be rid of that dog forever.

The 'System Restore feature' will save so called "restore points" till they totally overrun your HD causing all sorts of failures. I've seen as many as a half million files in that C:\_Restore folder.
It's much better to just be rid of it. I used to do that by hand till I came accross the "Me Restore Remover".
It only takes a few seconds to download, install and run, from an icon in the Control Panel.
Someone really put a lot of work into that little program. It's as varied as the question, "Boxers or briefs?".

As for FAT-32 vs. NTFS.....well there's been a few million words spent on that topic too and there is still NO solution to it. It's just a matter of user preference. (boxers or briefs)

Personally, I'm a control freak and I refuse to give up total control of my hard drive and all the stuff on it to a business system that has no business being on my HOME Computer.

I proudly keep all my drives and partitions in FAT-32 mode and my computer runs faster than any I've seen with NTFS on them. I call it my little "HAL 9000".

Stability of NTFS? That's a laugh! I've NEVER experienced any stability problem with my FAT-32 drives.
Keep'em clean and defragged and they are as stable as a rock.
And I can boot up to any drive with my DOS boot disk and do any kind of file maintenance I wish.
And, from my Ghost 2003 boot floppy, I can run a DOS batch file to remove my Pagefile, Restore Points and any other crapola from my HD before I do my Ghost Backup....saving about 2 gigs of space in my backup image. (Don't) Try that with an NTFS drive.

Oh well,,,,,good luck,

The Shadow

A lot of great input here. I personally like WinME. Everyone here knows that, lol. I always liked Win98 and WinME and they have many similarities. I can work with XP but I'm one of the few who won't rave about it. Just my 2 cents. It's been said by many that when you have a problem with ME, it's easier and quicker to fix. With XP, it's more intricate, more complicated, and more annoying to fix. Some disagree and that's fine. Having worked with both, I think it's true.

I'd totally expect that response from someone in Texas!

Just kidding! I actually have some pretty good friends in Texas. (or did have.)

But, all joking aside, ME can actually be made to run pretty well.
It takes some tweaking and tuning and getting rid of that usless
Restore feature, but after all that it runs fairly well.
Then, making a Ghost image to CD/DVD, periodically, takes care of the
backup problem.

I'd rather just fix it than remove it from older PC's. I'd never
upgrade to it from 98/SE though. That would be a retro-grade,
not an UP-Grade.

I can fix it in about ten minutes.....it takes a lot longer than that to
remove it or upgrade to XP and that's much simpler too.

If you intend to keep Windows-ME, you'll probably like having my ME-Boot Disk.
It's a great Tech Tool as well as a usefull tool for general users.
With it you can partition and format a new HD. You can empty that
Restore folder and delete all the junk files that build up on your HD.
You can also run "Scandisk" and did I mention,,,,,IT's FREE. Here.

If you want the floppy version, download:
wnMEboot.exe

And if you want the ISO file, to make your own Boot CD, download:
ME-Boot CD.ISO

Good Luck and Happy Computing,
The Shadow