So you want to upgrade to ME. Well I will tell you about WinME and some of its features. Microsoft Windows Millenium edition is the final OS which was written on the code used in win 9x OS.
Even if windows Xp is in market right now, but Xp is found to be very unstable, crashy, insecure( Many security flaws/Viruses are found in Xp since last six months) My approach to write a review on the WinME was to point on good/bad features in the OS so that newbie user can ignore but expert users can’t. WinME is just tuned version of Win 9x with some error corrections and tools to help user get most out of stable os.
Windows ME What’s New-
Windows ME’s user interface is between win9x and 2000. Well I am totally agree with the concept that bill gates steals the GUI concept from apple macintosh & are constantly stealing macintosh features which can be seen in Win XP too. Here System restore feature is also first introduced in this OS by MS. WinME is found to be stable than previous win9x architecture.Windows Media Player 7 & Internet Explorer 5.5 can be found in this OS. DirectX improved drivers are included which made system faster for newer games to load on latest pentium 4 computers.Boot process is quite faster than previous 9x os’s.
Upgrading?:-
If you are with old win 95/98 setup and happy with the setup then there is no need to upgrade to ME if your OS is doing quite well. Windows ME upgrade version license Costs 38$+ 14$ CD-ROM license(Confirm the price in your area). Computer requirement for the Wimdows Me is 150 MHZ pentium, Minimum 32 MB RAM, upto 600 MB free disk space etc. If you meet the above requirements then you are all set to go for WinME.
Good Side of Opearting system:-
The security patches/updates/fixes are now part of ME and overcomes Win9x in terms of security.
Driver support is excellent, Reduces Boot time by loading pre-configured Drivers.
Tweaking and Maintaining System is easy with tools can be found in Base product.
FAT32 file system is supported so you can dual boot with 9x or Win2k professional.
Networking is improved means it can automatically install TCP/IP or ethernet.
Wizards to configure/make changes to the system.
Well these are the features I found great/fine with ME and it is very good OS if you are with just data handler/Audio head and don’t use pc other than this.
Poor Side of Operating system:-
WinME requires much disk space than 9x and more space depends on the components you want to install.(Min 580-600MB apx)
WinME do not have access to MS-DOS but instead allow DOS command prompt but it is impossible to boot in DOS-prompt without WinME startup recovery disks.
Amount of memory to run OS is increased so WinMe requires atleast 32 MB RAM to run properly while 9x os can run fine on 16MB RAM.
Novell client is not included Downlaod this client via internet and also older Hardware is not detected automatically.
Microsoft developed this OS in bit of hurry so WinME is result of lack of qaulity control. My experience on technical forums shows that users with ME experience a disproportionate share of OS related problems. So it is widely viewed as less stable OS. When we think of upgrade in our country(india) consider time/money/crashes/loss of data then ME is really hands down.
That’s why I want you not to upgrade if you are happy with your current setup and want to upgrade just for features. As far as asia region is concerned WinXP, ME are popular for features and looks but are having dark side of security.
We can’t afford to take backup of data every now and then on CD-DVD just for virus infection/Security flaw in OS every month. Older Win9x and Win2k is much stable OS and still supported by MS in terms of security fixes/patches etc.
So if you are serious user of win9x want to upgrade then upgrade for Win2000 Professional(Much stable/less buggy) still supported by MS-Support center.