Upgrade, upgrade! No more support for 98! (Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition)

Name: andycharger

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Date:	23/08/02 (1497 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for older systems

Disadvantages: Compatibility

If you are one of the owners of the most common aged computers out there (about 3 or 4 years), I can predict that the majority of you will still be clumping away on Windows 98.
While it has done its job well, It may now be time to upgrade as Microsoft are stopping the support of this operating system this year.
Bet you did not know that did you?
Ok, maybe you did.
So you want support for your computer but where do you go? Your computer is a few years old now and will not be happy sticking Windows XP or 2000 on it.
Why is that?
Well, 2000 and XP require huge amounts of resources to function properly. In fact, unless you have a brand spanking new computer, you could run into all sort of incompatibility upgrading to these 2. Then you will be stuck in eternal limbo without an operating system!
So you have an older computer but what support. What is the solution?
Enter Windows Millenium Edition or Me for short.
This combines an improved performance with a more compatible and level-headed system that will work with most older technology.
Let me tell you of my experiences with it.

Installation.
2 Choices here.
Upgrade (updating the original System with the new one without losing most of your files)
Clean Install (wiping the machine and doing a fresh install.

My experiences with both of this has been quite frustrating. I attempted to upgrade my mother's windows 95 machine to Me without a fresh install. Checking the installation guide which is pretty thorough, I decided to upgrade. The problem with this is that on an older machine that is starting to become slow, the entire upgrade process is delayed and slowed by a slow read and write. It is much simpler to do a clean install. You dont get half of the problems that an upgrade can cause.
I tried 4 times to upgrade the machine before losing patience and wiping it.

Time spent trying to upgrade = 4.5 hours.

Time spent trying to
Clean install = 1.25 hours.

You tell me which is the best!
To clean install you need to insert the supplied boot disk with the software. This stops the normal boot up sequence when the computer starts and gives you a few options.
What you need to do is type "format C:" at the prompt.
This then asks you if its ok to format the drive. Say yes and this takes about 5 mins. Then restart the machine.
This time it should start with 2 options. With or without CD rom support. You have a CD with the software on so you need to select the WITH option. Then just follow th e onscreen instructions. Simple. Whole process should not take more than 75 mins from start to finish.

So installing from Fresh gets 8 out of 10.
Upgrading scores a miserable 0 out of 10!

Performance improvements.
Well, it claims to start up and shut down much quicker. As your hard drive becomes more cluttered, shut down takes longer anyway so a reinstall of any system would seem quicker. However, Me does seem MUCH quicker than the previous software, even on my mum's old PC.

It can now also rest your machine to a previous state! This is a brilliant function and available on XP too!
What doe sthis mean?
How many times have you bought a piece of software or hardware and tried to get it working only to find it has wrecked your machine?
Myself, I have lost count! However, the ability to turn back time has now arrived.
You can set your computer to make a back up at a particular time of day so that if you have trouble, you can roll back any changes. It truly is like time travelling on your computer. Obviously any files you change since the rollback date will be lost but if you make these snapshots often enough, you should never lose too much data.

It does also claim to be more stable than previous releases. The memory leaks and terminal failures do seem to be greatly reduced. I dont seem to be needed to answer question
by my mum as much as I used to. I was forever recieving phonecalls asking "Its doing this,blah blah blah...." or "It is aking me to do this" or "it wont work"
So well done to microsoft for improving stuff.

It also has greater ranges of included multimedia software. The later version of Media player are much better suited to playing movies and audio form the web which makes it a true Internet ready PC.

What I didn't like.
What I didn't like were the amount of drivers I had to go hunting for to get some of the peripherals to work. The Printer and scanner were both produced before Me was released so their included drivers did not cater for Me. I then had to scour the internet for drivers to make the devices work. This took ages and proved fruitless for the Printer. It just isnt supprted and meant buying a new one. The scanner was ok though.

I also did not like the fact that some games and bits of software no longer worked. It is always sad that software writers spend so much time making the stuff work with the latest computers that they totally neglect backwards compatibility.

Overall its not a bad operating system but it needs improving on the compatibility. Good for upgrading older machines.

Summary: