Herr Dethnout Posted June 26, 2023 3 hours ago, Zopawa said: i meant i have 3gb of hard drive space LEFT. No, no, that "what" was by complete disbelief that you only have 3gb left in your HDD... 1 hour ago, Murdoch said: Telling an inexperienced user to install a completely new OS they are not used to is not helpful. That's the joke. 1 Share this post Link to post
leejacksonaudio Posted June 26, 2023 I've never understood the hate for Windows ME. I installed a copy on my wife's AMD Duron machine, and it ran like a champ. She never once complained about it. Granted, she's not what you'd call a power user like most of us, but still, for her purposes, WinME ran a treat. 0 Share this post Link to post
Blzut3 Posted June 26, 2023 49 minutes ago, leejacksonaudio said: I've never understood the hate for Windows ME. I know someone who bought a pre built machine with ME and it was super unstable. I on the other hand ran ME in the day and had no notable problems that 98SE didn't also have. I've heard the new driver model didn't mix well with old style drivers so it really would come down to hardware selection (and probably not helped by updating drivers or OS not being a normal thing to do back then). Combine this with removal of easy access to DOS breaking legacy software compat, while still not being NT so still generally unstable compared to 2000. The short period of relevancy until XP came out. People generally forming opinions based on first impressions and not revisiting with new information. A few legitimate bugs in headlining features. Top it off with it just being the cool thing to hate on and here we are. The hate for ME and Vista both have a truth component that was blown way out of proportion. It perpetuates since people just like to parrot the popular opinion rather than understand the nuance. The side effect of it all though is that since the user base for these operating systems were small/short lived they don't really have an application support benefit over their predecessors so they don't really even get redeemed in retro circles. (Although I do think I've seen more people coming around on ME as of late. Particularly since it did have some minor features that make the out of the box experience better that would have been completely ignored in the day.) 2 Share this post Link to post
Professor Hastig Posted June 26, 2023 ME was the most unstable piece of shit I ever used. I have no idea whether this was due to ME being bad or just a screwed up installation on a system where the old hard drive had died. 2 Share this post Link to post
Azuris Posted June 26, 2023 11 hours ago, Blzut3 said: For everyone recommending Linux: This is an Intel Core 1 based Celeron, which means it's 32-bit only. Most distros are 64-bit only now including Ubuntu (although Ubuntu does have a free tier of Ubuntu Pro so technically you can get security updates for 5 more years on 18.04). Both Puppy Linux and LXLE are based on the now generally considered EOL Ubuntu 18.04. Debian 12 might be the last generic big name distro that's still supporting it. VIA/S3 Unichrome support is a big unknown. As Redneckerz points out there's the Openchrome driver which is slowly being worked on, but as far as I'm aware it's still not part of the mainline kernel and mesa. I don't know how easy it is to install and without it you're getting a basic VGA frame buffer. In any case, this isn't a well tested happy code path. (We're also talking about DX7/OpenGL 1 hardware, so honestly I'm not sure how well the driver works with Vista/7, but I don't think 7 will be any worse than Vista in that regard.) So it's not to say that you couldn't possibly get a usable and more secure system using Linux, but doing it on this hardware will likely require someone that knows what they're doing to get it setup. Really that hardware is at the point where it should be upgraded, it really is a retro computing toy at this point, but Windows 7 is probably the path of least resistance to squeeze out a little more usefulness. Oh before i bought my living room pc and put Linux on it, i bought a really cheap used netbook from Samsung with an Intel Atom. For Linux Mint is only a older Version aviable in 32 bit. But i was very surprised that the long loading XP Machine was now a working Machine i even could surf online with (yes, slow, but usable). Warcraft 2 wasn't running playable, because the CPU is very limiting, but most Stuff in Dosbox, Freeciv and Choclate Doom and Emulators up to the Super Nintendo. Compared to Vista i would even suggest Windows 8.1. May it be UI wise different, but they did some very good Work on the Kernel. The PC with Vista did need nearly a Minute to start. Windows 8 did need 10 Seconds. But i think while running i would stay with Mint. But i think we are only searching for what limit we are searching with older Machines haha 1 Share this post Link to post
Edward850 Posted June 26, 2023 26 minutes ago, Professor Hastig said: ME was the most unstable piece of shit I ever used. I have no idea whether this was due to ME being bad or just a screwed up installation on a system where the old hard drive had died. Probably going with hardware. LGR tested it and it seemed perfectly fine. 1 Share this post Link to post
antares031 Posted June 26, 2023 1 hour ago, leejacksonaudio said: I've never understood the hate for Windows ME. I installed a copy on my wife's AMD Duron machine, and it ran like a champ. She never once complained about it. Granted, she's not what you'd call a power user like most of us, but still, for her purposes, WinME ran a treat. From my experience, Windows Me was THE worst operating system I've ever used. A couple of months after the installation, horrendous optimization and terrible memory leak made it literally unusable. Seriously, I had to reset the computer, in order to use my PC properly every couple of hours. Slower loading speed was one thing, but vomiting out numerous BSoD was another. Sometimes it just summoned BSoD with no cleasr reason and it made me crazy. I still remember the error code of it even after 20 years later, and it was 0E. It was not just my computer's problem, and others had the same issue with their Windows Me back then. Formatting C Drive was only a temporary solution, and it only worked for several months. The best solution was just getting the brand new Windows XP years later. Thank god Windows XP was one of the best operating system I've ever used. 1 Share this post Link to post
roadworx Posted June 26, 2023 4 hours ago, prfunky said: Did you know that you're my hero? WinMe stripped of the "backup every stupid hard drive change ever made" feature and a couple other nuisances actually operates like Windows 98 Third Edition. What I want to know is why anyone would want to play Doom or Doom 2 when there's so many better, newer first-person shooter games out there? WTF?! 1 hour ago, leejacksonaudio said: I've never understood the hate for Windows ME. I installed a copy on my wife's AMD Duron machine, and it ran like a champ. She never once complained about it. Granted, she's not what you'd call a power user like most of us, but still, for her purposes, WinME ran a treat. having to deal with drivers on win98 is already a pain in the ass - i had to reformat my win98 pc earlier this year because creative drivers completely fucked it up - but from what i understand, windows me is horrendous with that. so if you're unlucky enough to have the wrong hardware and are doing more than simple office stuff, it's probably really terrible 1 Share this post Link to post
Azuris Posted June 26, 2023 2 hours ago, antares031 said: From my experience, Windows Me was THE worst operating system I've ever used. A couple of months after the installation, horrendous optimization and terrible memory leak made it literally unusable. Seriously, I had to reset the computer, in order to use my PC properly every couple of hours. Slower loading speed was one thing, but vomiting out numerous BSoD was another. Sometimes it just summoned BSoD with no cleasr reason and it made me crazy. I still remember the error code of it even after 20 years later, and it was 0E. I tested it a bit, i think it wasn't worse than 98 nor really better. Checking a bit on Facts, it seems that they took out the Problem with the loading Registry and it booted faster, also better USB support etc. But it was a nogo for me that i couldn't boot to Dos. And yes, nowadays you can search for it how to regain it, but i had no Internet or good english Skills at the Time :) Maybe i'll test it out some Day again. Though i did test out Windows 2000 Professional about 2003 for a Year, because i got an old PC from my Fathers Work and was surprised, as it was very stable and more or less like a pre Windows XP. I had to do literally nothing with Drivers after installing it to my Surprise. 2004 it got changed out with a new PC because of Doom 3 XP 0 Share this post Link to post
PsychEyeball Posted June 26, 2023 4 hours ago, leejacksonaudio said: I've never understood the hate for Windows ME. I installed a copy on my wife's AMD Duron machine, and it ran like a champ. She never once complained about it. Granted, she's not what you'd call a power user like most of us, but still, for her purposes, WinME ran a treat. Eons ago, I had a Windows ME installation going and the first thing I did was install the driver for my ATI graphic card. Windows ME never booted again, not even in safe mode. I ended up reinstalling Windows 98 right after. Gonna guess Windows ME is one of those things that work well for certain people, but if it decides to go bad, it goes bad hard. re: original post Going from Windows XP to Windows Vista is not an upgrade. If you are to stick to a Windows platform that is deprecated, at least use one that will work well on your setup and isn't an unstable mess. Either stick with XP or try Windows 7, which not only runs smoother than Vista, but has slightly more lax system requirements. 1 Share this post Link to post
HavoX Posted June 26, 2023 5 hours ago, leejacksonaudio said: I've never understood the hate for Windows ME. I installed a copy on my wife's AMD Duron machine, and it ran like a champ. She never once complained about it. Granted, she's not what you'd call a power user like most of us, but still, for her purposes, WinME ran a treat. I dunno... I seem to recall that Dad wasn't a big fan of WinME.. 0 Share this post Link to post
LuzRoja29 Posted June 26, 2023 23 hours ago, DELTA256 said: I went ahead and translated that so I could understand it, I'm not sure what lego star wars, call of duty 2, and worms 4 mayhem has to do with updating old hardware TBH... some cool games. install it 0 Share this post Link to post
Martin Howe Posted June 26, 2023 WinME crashing all the time on the computers of everyone I knew running Windows is what drove me to be an early adopter of Windows 2000. 0 Share this post Link to post
Nikku4211 Posted June 26, 2023 I really miss the Aero aesthetic of Vista and 7. It looked so cool and full of personality, reflecting the optimism for the future by the time those OSes came out. 3 Share this post Link to post
Blzut3 Posted June 26, 2023 5 hours ago, PsychEyeball said: Eons ago, I had a Windows ME installation going and the first thing I did was install the driver for my ATI graphic card. Windows ME never booted again, not even in safe mode. I ended up reinstalling Windows 98 right after. Perfect example of blaming ME for third party driver problem (ATi being particularly notable for this and I say this as a long time ATi customer). I believe I was still running a Voodoo 3 with ME (would have been a Pentium 3 450 w/ 440BX chipset and Sound Blaster Live). I did upgrade to an 8500DV but since that was a used card when I got it I probably upgraded to XP by then. Which isn't to say I blame anyone for reverting to 98SE after a driver issue, but if it was a once and never again experience then ME is probably better than you remember given the benefit of patched drivers today. 6 hours ago, Azuris said: But it was a nogo for me that i couldn't boot to Dos. And yes, nowadays you can search for it how to regain it, but i had no Internet or good english Skills at the Time :) One thing I've learned fairly recently playing with retro systems is that the restart to MS-DOS function of 95/98 is more often than not a cause of problems. So many more things have worked for me by using a boot menu and cold booting directly to DOS if need be that in hindsight this change isn't actually that big of a deal. Almost may as well use a boot floppy or dual boot ME and DOS. But not going to lie it is slightly more convenient to just have the dual boot function built into the OS. 3 Share this post Link to post
ant Posted July 2, 2023 On 6/25/2023 at 12:54 AM, Blzut3 said: Given the VIA/S3 graphics this may not work well. Even for basic GUI like Xfce? I used that in my 13 yrs. old PC's Debian with 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB HDD & 115 GB SSD, etc. It was for basic usage. I assume classic/original DOOMs will be fine. 1 Share this post Link to post
Blzut3 Posted July 2, 2023 1 hour ago, ant said: Even for basic GUI like Xfce? I used that in my 13 yrs. old PC's Debian with 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB HDD & 115 GB SSD, etc. It was for basic usage. I assume classic/original DOOMs will be fine. If you had a system with that graphics chip and found it to be fine then you're probably a more authoritative source than me. However at the time of that writing I was under the impression that he got some kind of driver installed and thought maybe Windows classic being vectors would still be able to use 2D acceleration. A later post suggested he may be using Microsoft's basic VGA support as well so may all be moot anyway. Still I can't say I'd recommend using that hardware as a introduction to Linux as it sounds like a great way to have a bad first experience. 2 Share this post Link to post