98SE vs Me - my results

[LSchafroth]

I've always read review after review stating that 98SE was always faster then Windows Me. About 8-10%.

However my results have always been the opposite, 100% of the time.

I was throwing together some scrap parts for a PC for my brother-in-law. It is an old P200 with 96Mb PC133 RAM & a 1.7Gb drive. OLD I know, but free.

I put 98SE on it, updated to all the latest patches and drivers for all components. Ran Perfectdisk defrag that took 5 hours. General use was sluggish and not very usefull for web browsing.

I FDISK'd it and put Windows Me on it. Did all the updates, removed restore and PCHealth crap. Removed doublespace and compression drivers from MSDOS.SYS file and did some other Vcache tweaks and so forth. (same thing I did for 98SE). Did all the updates and installs. Ran PerfectDisk defrag and took 30 minutes.

Overall use was somewhat snappy, responsive and could load two or three apps in the background while browsing the net. I've always heard the horror stories of Windows Me from everyone, but that OS has always ROCKED on slower systems for me and is VERY stable.

At one point I had 265 installs of it at work. Very few issues other than user induced problems. Then we went to 2K eventually.

Just my 2 cents....

LS

[Scottie]

why even bother, ME sucks big time and is anyone even using 98 these days ?

[LSchafroth]

why even bother, ME sucks big time and is anyone even using 98 these days ?

Why bother? You think running Win XP on that machine is the solution for them?

LS

[bazooka]

why even bother, ME sucks big time and is anyone even using 98 these days ?

Why bother? You think running Win XP on that machine is the solution for them?

LS

I think XP is the solution.

I cannot even give away my copy of M.E.

Noone will take it.

[redwudz]

WinPro 2000 works good on old machines. A whole lot better than ME or W98. Doesn't have the overhead of XP.

[smearbrick1]

WIN2k is great for older machines! I have a PII 450mhz (my garage jukebox) that works quite nicely. Unfortunately, it's the IBM 300gl that only has 2 ram slots and not 3, so it maxes out at 256mb of ram... still works great!!!

[stiltman]

I run win2k on this machine. I refuse to go to XP

edit

I also refuse to create my computer profile for the 3rd time

[Scottie]

I threw my copy of ME away I didn't want to responisble for someone elses computer messing up all the time and running crappy.

[Scottie]

I'd talk to some Computer shops and get atleast a 700 Mhz CPU and Matching MB and Some Ram and give your brother something worth using.

[808smokey]

ME is the absolote worst OS ever designed and sold. I smashed my "restore CD" 3 months after I bought my 1st computer. I refuse to fix anyones computer that runs windows ME

[Scottie]

I just finally talk my girlfriends parents into switching from ME to XP on their CompCrap Athlon 750 they had 180 MB of Ram so I added another 256 MB and they love it, and no my problems.

[Capmaster]

why even bother, ME sucks big time and is anyone even using 98 these days ?

Lots.

My wife has ME on her laptop and won't let me upgrade it. She loves ME.

And my Libretto runs 98SE flawlessly

[Scottie]

I'd mess her laptop up and hide the disk.

[Capmaster]

I'd mess her laptop up and hide the disk.

This is the person who prepares my meals

[Scottie]

must be nice

[ofbarea]

I've always read review after review stating that 98SE was always faster then Windows Me. About 8-10%.

However my results have always been the opposite, 100% of the time.

I was throwing together some scrap parts for a PC for my brother-in-law. It is an old P200 with 96Mb PC133 RAM & a 1.7Gb drive. OLD I know, but free.

I put 98SE on it, updated to all the latest patches and drivers for all components. Ran Perfectdisk defrag that took 5 hours. General use was sluggish and not very usefull for web browsing.

I FDISK'd it and put Windows Me on it. Did all the updates, removed restore and PCHealth crap. Removed doublespace and compression drivers from MSDOS.SYS file and did some other Vcache tweaks and so forth. (same thing I did for 98SE). Did all the updates and installs. Ran PerfectDisk defrag and took 30 minutes.

Overall use was somewhat snappy, responsive and could load two or three apps in the background while browsing the net. I've always heard the horror stories of Windows Me from everyone, but that OS has always ROCKED on slower systems for me and is VERY stable.

At one point I had 265 installs of it at work. Very few issues other than user induced problems. Then we went to 2K eventually.

Just my 2 cents....

LS

I think it would take more time to defrag because of the disk was probably more fragmented after the setup than Win ME.

In an old machine I would prefer to install W98SE, just because you have the option of booting directly to DOS without hacks. But I prefer using OS/2 warp 4. It will be a lot more stable than Win 98/ME. For example I have an old laptop with a Pentium 60Mhz CPU, 80 MB RAM and a 2 MB hard disk that runs at a decent speed with this OS.

[devinemi83]

WIN2k is great for older machines! I have a PII 450mhz (my garage jukebox) that works quite nicely. Unfortunately, it's the IBM 300gl that only has 2 ram slots and not 3, so it maxes out at 256mb of ram... still works great!!!

I agree 100% I have an old 500MHz celeron 64 mb ram and I usually use 98SE because its quicker but I also enjoy using win2000. It runs REALLY quick and stable for my machine. I have also tried winxp pro and it ran but barely. She was VERY slow on my computer.

If you want a quick stable machine with no fluff I recommend Windows 2000.

[Jester700]

My experience with WinME is that it's not bad if you strip it down and get rid of the performance hogging features. But IMO it's easier to just use 98SE if you need an OS for an older, slower, small memory box. It's just that you see so many problems with machines that haven't been tweaked that you get a bad opinion of ME pretty quickly.

The same goes for XP vs. 2k - if you strip out unneeded apps & services, the requirements for XP really aren't any greater than 2k. And on these OSes, the deactivation of services is easier.