[PCWorld]

Post your comments for What's Worse: Windows Vista or Windows Me? here

[lewac]

they're all terrible far as we're concerned. they've gotten "prettier" but at a price... slowsky. and if one is gonna do a "facelift" and move things around to unfamiliar places why not just switch to a better OS instead (because the learning curve isn't gonna be much higher in either case)? the biggest gripe we have though is the lack of security at the file level (no ownership, no permissions). and this has been the problem since history began using drive letters with cp/m. "they" need to replace ntfs with something akin to ex4. at least a small step in the right direction there. because in linux its tough to play little games with a file that one does not own. in windoze you can't see ex4... blind as a bat. but no problem the other way.

[dfschmid]

Yeah, but the Mac costs a lot more.

I'm not blowing some 3K for a Mac during a recession just because it looks nicer.

And I don't have the patience or the programming knowledge to figure out complicated OS's like Linux, or Ubunta, or whatever they're called. The City of Munich a couple years ago blew millions just trying to install and get Linux to work properly. They could have saved big bucks and retain compatibility with their hardware if they used the Win platform.

Well, to each his own I suppose.

[yankeeDDL]

I never used Vista, but I fought with ME for 8 months. It came with my Dell Inspiron and ... well, there was no way to let it run for more than a couple of days without a crash.
The same laptop worked well under XP and now flies with Ubuntu, so it had nothing to do with the hardware: it was all ME's fault.
And I tried. I really tried to make it work. Clean install (I had Office XP: every time I would re-install it I'd have to spend 30 minutes on the phone with MS to spell some 30 alphanumeric codes back and forth ...) and also all memory management, registry tweaker and other performance enhancements that one can think of. And of course, all flavors in between. I spent more time installing and re-installing Windows than I actually used that laptop. Till XP came along.
I agree with the article that Vista has some technological improvements over XP, while ME was only a polished W98, but you also nee dto admit that after a pretty decent OS like XP, screwing it up like they did with Vista wasn't easy. Windows 98 after all was only the 2nd 'real' Windows OS, so it was much harder to build on that. Anyway: they're both behind us. Thanks God.

[mpheadley]

I strongly agree with the article. Back in the day, I must have reinstalled ME like 10 times before giving up!
Vista was only screwed up in that it was developed for better computers before there were better computers! And that it was also probably rushed and not refined like it will be with windows 7.
I believe Windows 7 will be a big success, like XP was.

[PoorBird]

I must lead a charmed life... I went from windows 98SE to XP... nothing in between... and have used XP since. I am by no means a power user, I just want
the gun to fire when I pull the trigger, and XP does that with few exceptions. I jumped at a chance in December to replace a laptop with XP pre-loaded at no extra charge.... a one-day Dell deal...saw it, ordered it.
The changeover from old box to new box
was easiest we have ever done. Windows 7 does not even tempt me now.
Maybe sometime... after a service pack
comes out. Maybe.

[ClaudeD]

Vista hands down is worse. I never had any trouble with my ME. But, then I didn't build the pc out of crap, cheap components.

[oldschoolh4ck3r]

Windows ME and Windows Vista have been both good operating systems for me. But every version of Windows I've used has had problems - mainly related to the way Windows is designed. I haven't seen any major groundbreaking innovation from Microsoft. Going from ME to XP was great, but other than that, it's all the same to me. I'm really quite sick of it all. I'd like to see them stick to a proven OS like XP and keep it going with service packs for an affordable price. Zzz

[Evildave]

Munich? That's ancient history, and Linux WON that battle, BTW. Easily.
http://74.125.19.132/translatec?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/ueberblick/175149/windowsabloesung.html&prev=t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhj8hTPGexnF8GnVyBTFw33aVaiw

If they were to begin it afresh, it would be even easier than five years ago when they started that, and they'd probably be running most of their legacy apps in WINE, rather than keeping 20% Windoze PCs.

And not to burst your bubble, but China and Russia both are officially Linux.

Microsoft 'won' their copyright battle with China, so China opted to make 'Red Flag' Linux the official OS. Period. Yeah, Commies can do that.

ALT Linux is installed in every Russian School, and in virtually all levels of government. Russia doesn't trust Micro$oft, and who in their right mind ever would, with Micro$oft's history in critical applications?

[Beavis123456]

Windows Mistake Edition! People thought Y2K was gonna screw stuff up... and they were right! :P

[quackadilly]

Windows Me was by far the worse of the 2. I had a horrid experience with it......

Multiple crashes daily. Freezing. BSoD.



After I put XP Pro on it, worked like a charm.

[WinTard]

Bad experience with Windows Millennium Edition. Great experience with Windows Vista. I still use Vista x64 in my son's gaming & kick ass PC. Too many things to reinstall (so he says) for him to part with his favorite toy! So we're building an even more kick-ass i7... Just for Windows 7 Ultimate x64...

ME was based on the old DOS with a GUI on top. Vista is based onto NT... And was fine IMHO. The only negative thing about Vista, is it then required 2GB RAM to run with elbow-room, or became extremely sluggish as would anyone with 1GB RAM experience.

Windows 7 runs okay with 1GB RAM, in fact better than XP in the exact same hardware... By better, I mean faster, quicker...

Eh, I use Windows more than I use Linux, but use both with equal ease. And why not? Linux is free. But that isn't its best feature. The best feature resides in the open-source concept. Why? To understand. To learn & tinker...

[jjs007]

I love my Vista Ultimate and never really had any problems with ME. One thing that never gets mentioned is that ME was the Genesis OS for SYstem Restore in windows. If you liked nothing else about the product, at least give it its props. System restore survives to this day and is always my option of last reprive when I try to save someone's a$$ when their computer dies and they have no backup.
I heard a lot of bad things about ME, but I'll always remember it for that.

[jjs007]

Whay are people commenting on Apple and Linux? I get tired of the Apple and Linux fanbois always lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on any article that is strickly about a Window's OS; or in this case two.

Come on guys; cool the retoric occationally. There are plenty of articles about OSX and Ubuntu that just ache for your verbal lovin'. LOL

[mpheadley]

And that's probably what caused all the bad shutdowns and corrupted startup files and aggravation of the OS!

[WinTard]

Without Windows, they'd have nothing to bitch at. And if they started their own thread, nobody would respond... Prolly because of lack of interest and obscurity... But I agree with you, they are annoying! A bit like ticks and fleas... I am a Linux aficionado as well, but I don't go around crapping all over other platforms either.

[deepsand]

Actually, none of the Win 9x/ME versions were true "Windows," i.e. multitasking, OSes. All ran on top of a DOS kernel.

[doodyman]

windows me worked fine for me, in fact, it crashed everyday with 98 but after a ME install, worked fine for years.

[Northlite]

Personally I didn't/don't have any problems monumental in either - we do use our computers for more now than then so more has to agree with the OS, I find Vista to be more plug and play with my extras like Digital Camera, MP3 Player, assorted media card types and USB flash drives and altho I have had it stumble a few times since using it I haven't had any real crashes. I still have one in my group on Me - no need for anything more and can't afford to buy anything else. I support a small group of computer users and for me as we have went from Win 95 to Vista things for me have gotten easier to set up and maintain with each new OS - I get hardly no calls for help now.

I started with Windows/Windows for Work Groups, 3.11 then to 95, I remember those being a little cranky at times but mainly because I had a wired home network set up between two computers and a printer, but from there on things got better with each OS after that. I did put a lot more time into learning the OS back then, after XP service pack 2 I could start to concentrate more on the software we were putting on which is a lot more then back then too.

[izzledizzle]

at least vista improved greatly after sp1. ME was just terrible all around. Vista is a perfectly fine OS today, yeah it might of sucked when it first came out, but since the sp1 was released a few months later, i don't know anyone that is still having problems with it.