Change and improvements are part of life and hence change in OS is also welcome to me, cause software upgrades are always aimed to serve better, especially when the creator expects to earn. (How far they are successful in achieving this aim, is a different story!) But to pay for a shoe and pay the same price for purchasing a similar shoe with an extra stud, the next day, is a little absurd. And what if you could buy that extra stud for much lesser and nail it yourself to your existing shoe? So is the case with Windows ME. But I couldn’t help it…I had to check it out before I use Windows XP. (Oh! I already have an article “Windows XP: Whats in store?”….first on this site, for those who are curious…. Pity, October is still far away)
And truly the installation (upgrade to Win 98) was smooth and easy. Especially the cosmetics are cool with nice color scheme, saffron, green, blue and white. These colors are also present in our national flag (India), which make it all the more likeable. Strikingly enough I found some changes that impressed me at first sight. The explorer has a “thumbnail” in View menu that shows the contents (thumbnail images) of some documents like html and nearly all picture files. So one has a better idea, which file to open. This is also true in “file open” dialog boxes for some Windows applications like MS Paint, Imaging and PhotoEditor. Also obvious was faster boot due to absence of “real mode”. So booting from DOS Prompt is not possible (unless you make a startup disk, which retains Dos boot). Windows Media Player 7 is impressive and I have written an article titled “WMP7: Wonderful Marvelous Product”. The moviemaker is interesting tool but I for now have no usage for it. The WIA devices like cameras and scanners can be utilized better with a special wizard.
Here is what I like and dislike:
Interface: Mascara and Eye Liner:
The noticeable eye-candy are icons seem somehow more clear and sharp on screen. “Start menu” has WinMe on left side and the Program submenu opens all listed applications together rather than scroll-and-try-to-find-me type of Win 98. It is supposed to list the most frequently used applications (something noticeable in menu system of Word 2000) and leave the rest for one scroll button, but on my PC it shows all of them. (wonder why?). Check the “hyperlink” interface for control panel, its noticeably different. There are new picture files (goldpetals.jpg is my favourite). The “Find” in Start Menu is replaced by “Search” which has traditional features like search for files with “containing text” filter and based on date, size etc. But the interface appears like html document with scripts. The “My Network Places” (previously known as Network Neighbourhood) appears terribly cluttered. It does not list the computers, but all the shared resources (eg: c: on Amit, c: on Vikas, dos on Amit, my documents on Amit). Advantage is one-click access.
HELP and SUPPORT:
This was html interface before but the WinME help interface seems very different (although still like html page). With links that list topics, which seems to change based on help topics accessed and updates based on changes to microsofts websites. The search in help system is simply marvelous. Just key in word and it lists links related to search (eg. I tried “rename file” in search and it had one link that mentions how to rename file with right-click on filename and selecting a rename option. Another link told me how to rename using save as option.). There are two major problems though. Firstly it takes more time to load “help” and secondly there is no way of differentiating whether a click will take you to help topic in PC or the one on Web, until you click it.
UPnP: What’s that?:
Win 98 SE had a better PnP but required installation of Iomega Zip CD (USB) through a CD-ROM. Win ME PnP (with more drivers naturally) worked best. It was even more fascinating to connect the HP1220C deskjet printer. It installs in a few seconds. But what is UPnP? For one I haven’t tried it out because I don’t have any hardware with UPnP. Well still curious? Ever heard of Web refrigerators that will order groceries. These hi-tech devices use Universal Plug n Play and ME already has a support. Pity it’s not of much use and XP will already be here by October.
Net: It’s a part of myself and ME too:
Oh yes, I spend most of my (non-valuable) time on NET and ME is for me. ICS was introduced in Win98 and allows different PC to share a common net connection. The setup is made simpler by “home networking wizard”. Games in Windows – ha! Boy I thought Wolf, Quake, Doom, NSF etc are the most preferred. Ever heard of Solitaire or Minesweeper? Hmm..of course we played them once upon time. ME has Spider Solitaire and BackGammon and Checkers etc. Why am I mentioning games under Net heading. That’s because these can be played over the Internet. MSN Messenger is a compulsory install but I couldn’t go past the “sign in”. IE5.5?? I had IE5 and installed IE6 preview. So I do not know much, except that it provided only a print preview feature over IE5.
System: Oh! It Got Better:
Defrag, ScanDisk, Disk Cleanup, FAT converter, Resource Meter, Dr. Watson, DirectX Diagnostic tool, Update Wizard, Registry Checker are inherited from Win98, there are some changes. There is a new System Restore which is extremely useful. It’s a simple tool that allots certain hard disk space where it saves the current state of the system (after every 10 continuous hours of operation…if you work that hard…continuously!). This it does by taking snapshots, which is possible manually too and before installing/uninstalling a program. In case there is any failure or corruption of a system file…just use “System Restore” and things are back in place. It doesn’t work with data though… Something innovative is “Hibernation” which saves state and shuts off the hard disk too and hence is a step ahead of the standby mode. The backup feature is absolutely missing. Even a search for word “backup” does not prove useful.
System Information:
There is something interesting though under Programs-Accessories-System Tools-System Information. Firstly this is where one could see plenty of information regarding all the hardware resources, components etc. But WinMe has addition of “application” category here (only MS Office applications…). Did you know that Word 2000 is actually Word 9.00?. If a word document is open (for instance) here all the information regarding page layout, fonts, settings are visible here. In the “Tools” Menu there is a new feature WMI (Windows management Instrumentation) that enables any user or group to perform windows management tasks on remote or local PCs and backup/restore (not of data) but of database of objects, which can be accessed for WMI.
So lets not surrender to fancies like WinME, so that an upgrade is an upgrade and NOT that extra stud.
P.S: (DOS to Win 3.1 to Win 95 were real upgrades)