BleepingComputer.com: How come lots of people say that Windows ME is bad?

I have personally used Windows ME myself and never encountered any problems with it (besides a virus infection, which is due to having no AV).

But people treat Windows ME like it's the worst OS Microsoft made (along with Vista).

What are your opinions of Windows ME?

Lloyd T, on Oct 18 2008, 06:42 AM, said:

It was the the most buggiest piece of software that was my misfortune to ever buy.

It is now under about 30 metres of landfill where it belongs...

Why do people find vista bad. Other then update your crappy Computer hardware

A lot of people had no problems with WinME, and we didn't hear anything from them, only those who didn't like it.

Since it was released after Windows 2000, some people thought it therefore should be "better" than Win2k, and tried to use it when they actually would have been better off using Win2k. Features like System Restore that made WinME look more heavy-duty than it was, were in early implementation and not too effective.

Some people were disappointed that planned merging of the two Windows codestreams, Win9x and NT, hadn't occurred, and were just unhappy that Windows for home computers was still Win9x based, and condemned it as a stop-gap. They may be the people who are now very staunch supporters of WinXP, the version that did finally merge the two Windows streams.

And since ME added extra functionality and features onto the 9x platform, and people are therefore likely to try to do more with it than they would have with Win98 or 95, there is just more to potentially give people problems.

I started using ME in around August and stopped in September (I finally found an unused OEM copy of XP at home- what luck!)

And in my opinion, the experience wasn't all bad
Other than not being able to use some programs I normally would (due to incompatibly) I didn't have any problems (that weren't caused by my stupidity).

I've been told (and I've read) that Windows XP has more security holes than ME did.

There was one thing that really pissed me off about Windows ME
When you would remove a USB device without "safely" removing it through Windows, a little message would pop up. That annoyed me. Oh and one more thing that annoyed me was the Windows ME startup screen. Lordy, that was an ugly thing...

I'm one of those who had Windows Me running lean and mean after some tweaking on my part. I even used it for software reviews for a pc help club for about 2 years. I was constantly installing and removing programs, so I added extra stress to it (if you believe it was the worst OS ever) and it still performed just fine.

I only forced myself to switch to XP because my friends and family consider me the computer guru and I was always having to fix their XP machines for one reason or another. So I had to learn it. And now I'm used to it.

Windows Me did everything I needed to do. If ClearType would work in Windows Me, I wouldn't mind going back to it. But my old eyes need ClearType now.

With a good antivirus, a decent firewall and reasonable caution, there's no reason to worry about Windows Me. If you like it, keep it.

Some people say that Windows 98SE is better than Windows ME. I find opposite to be true. I had been using Windows ME for years and it was very robust, fast and error free.

I stopped using Windows ME when new applications / softwares started refusing to install on it.

Now I am using XP and I think that its best OS from MS for now.

Maybe it's because I got the upgrade version of it for Win 95, but I had lots of issues with it. It crashed (brought up the BSOD) a lot. So yeah, I thought it was pretty bad. We used to say ME must stand for "might explode" your computer!

Romeo29, on Oct 18 2008, 08:17 PM, said:

Well I had a Win98SE to WinME upgrade a few years ago. I try it wasn't impressed so 98 went back in.

Last year I bought a genuine WinME of eBay. Did a format and a fresh install but the first time it started up it came up with an Browseui.dll error. It said try a restart to fix the problem, I did this several times but the error was still there. Just clicking the mouse on the desktop brought the error back so it didn't work.

The following day I did another format and fresh install and it went in ok ok that day. Loaded all my usual software in no problem. I write programmes so I use Imagedit.exe which is a simple icon and cursor editor. Now on 98 icons and cursors show up as little pictures. You double click on one and you choose Imagedit.exe to open each time works great. On ME icons are viewed with Image Preview which is neither use nor ornament. So I use Folder Options and File Types to find ico properties and delete it. Go back to an icon double-click on it and select Imagedit.exe to open it and it works ok. So I install more software and I go back to some icons and the icon has changed on all of them to the Imagedit.exe icon. So I go back to File Types to see what is showing under ico and Imagedit.exe is showing. So I click the restore button to put it back to Image Preview and that changes all the icons to Image Preview icon.

In Win98 you could see the icon as a picture, you just double-click on it and it asks what program you want to open it. Just select Imagedit.exe and jobs done, you can still see the icon image and Imagedit.exe opens it, what could be simpler.

How can they **** up a simple operation? So Win98SE goes back again and it works perfectly again.

The only slight advantage of ME over 98 is you don't need additional drivers for flash drives but thats no problem with 98 anyway.

The thing that annoyed me about ME the most was the constant deletion of DNS IP addresses and DUN settings with no user intervention and no sign of anything malware.

Keithuk, on Oct 19 2008, 04:29 PM, said:

By default, Win ME shows icons as icon pictures in windows explorer. And not only that, but icon libraries too (.ICL). I remember this because I used Microangelo to edit icons in Win ME. And even after installing Microangelo I could see the icons as bitmaps in explorer. You cannot blame Win ME for an old software designed for older OS.

I guess I am in the minority group since I never had problems with
my ME machine. Although it has served me well as my main PC for
many years it made it's way to the closet, but on the rare occasion
I need it for something it boots and runs just like a new one.
Granted all the software is out of date and it isn't fast in any
definition of the word, but it works. And I have never had to
reformat it.

Vista is pretty awesome now that it's up to SP1 and most of the 3rd party hardware devs have their drivers sorted out now.

WinME was despicable. It used basically the same kernel as Win9x except they removed legacy 16-bit support for no reason, and introduced HUGE GAPING memory leaks.
My dad ordered a WinME system to do video editing, using Adobe Premiere. It would crash constantly. ME would absolutely refuse to release and reallocate memory between applications, and since Premiere was a memory-intensive application it was all but completely impossible for him to complete projects on the piece of trash.

I switched him over to XP using his exact same hardware configuration and POOF all of his program crashes and memory errors vanished.

ME is garbage, pure and simple. It is the OS that MS should have recalled, it had so many glaring faults.

windows me is not bad
i had windows me all my life and it was aways good never got any probloms only when i did some thing to it lol
just get rid of system restore and its a great opearating system
system restore just takes to much room

I am still using Windows Me. Am frustrated with the speed of my computer but that's probably more due to my connection than to my OS. The word on the chats when Me first came out was that it was wonderful. However, with time it became obvious that it was very crash-prone and had a lot of bugs, especially security-related (or maybe those are just the ones that got my ATTENTION!) BTW, System Restore has saved my butt more times than I care to remember. This old lady has had viruses, crashes, had to restore Windows several times, but it still keeps operating. May update to XP someday. Frustrating part is, though, that Microsucks has stopped support for Me ever since 2006. That's why I'm here. Also, the above-mentioned albatross put out at least TWO versions of Me. One was the regular, full version. The other (what I apparently have) is an upgrade from 98. One indicator may be that if you get deep into your 'puter, files will start showing up that have listed as their operating system Windows 98 (or possibly 98 SE; I don't remember for sure).