Abysmal instability of Windows ME

TwoShedsJackson

Windows ME is pathetically unstable on my machine - Outlook Express crashes constantly, the machine rarely shuts down properly, anyone got any ideas on making this bugger stable.

When I had Win98SE on an old machine that crashed about three times a year, this falls over five a day at least.

Cond0r

install a different OS?

BNC

seconded

seriously though I found WinME absoloutely awful reinstalled 98se again, much better for games etc.

[This message has been edited by BNC (edited 27-05-2001).]

smoke.me.a.kipper

it is pretty poor. i'm going to upgrade all mine to win2k.

Gerry

well, before you install win2k, has the machine been unstable ever since you started using win ME, or has it suddenly become unstable? Perhaps it doesnt like one of the components in your system. You could try removing all non-essential cards and see if it runs stable then. You could also try updating internet explorer. To be honest I wouldn't bother, I'd just upgrade to win2k.

BNC

As a matter of interest whats Win2K like for games (I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, Hectic lifestyle!!) I know WinNt was a right pain...

Dont be at yourself

Win ME is horrible, anytime I try to shut meh pooter down I get a BSOD

As for Win2k for gaming, its not much different to win me. At first Win2k was dire for gaming but drivers etc have been sorted.

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Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham! You just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, bat man."
hello.

flamegrill

Having used WinME and 2000 on the same machine since last summer, id have to say iv had no problems what so ever(well maybe 1).
The one problem with WinME was not a shutdown problem, but a game problem. CM2 crashes about 30 seconds into any race. Its very distressing. It works fine in windows 2000, which to be honest I thought it would be the other way around.

So out of normal use about 12 hours a day during the week and all weekend I find that windowsME is fine and runs very stable and runs every other game I have without a problem.

My spec just for show are:

Amd Athlon 750MHz
256mb pc100 sdram
35gig HDD
Voodoo3 3000
SB Live! Value
Toshiba DVD-ROM
Philips 8x4x32x cd-rw
3Com 905C-tx NIC

it never did run windows 98 very well, even though it was shipped with it....


flame

lampsie

I'd recommend avoiding winme if you can, I switched back to win98SE (and of course my beloved BeOS, but thats another story) after a couple of days. Its unstable as hell, not to mention the fact that its all a bit too nicey-nicey - "Ah, I can fix this if I go back to DOS...hmm, how do I get DOS?" Argh etc.

If you want to stick with it, just do the usuals...get bugfixes, latest drivers, take up smoking.

Lampsie

WhiteWashMan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Castor Troy:
Windows ME is pathetically unstable on my machine - Outlook Express crashes constantly, the machine rarely shuts down properly, anyone got any ideas on making this bugger stable.

When I had Win98SE on an old machine that crashed about three times a year, this falls over five a day at least.</font>

hahahahahahaha
ahh conor, what are you installing ****e like that for.
i also found ME to be really unstable and opted for win2k instead and ive never had a single problem with it. not once.
i can give you a copy of it if you want, but i would suggest that or either reinstall win98 since you probably still have all the driver etc for it still.
its a pain in the ass d/ling all the drivers for win2k

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Your Dungeon Is On An Incline;
Irate Creatures Cannot Play Marbles

TwoShedsJackson

It was on the machine when I bought it, Eamo old chap, I didn't install it. Anyway thanks for the help guys - I got around the Outlook Express problem by downloading a shareware newsreader which is about ten times faster and easier to use than OE so that's sorted

As for Win2k, it's supposed to be very game un-friendly and that's what I mostly do on this comp, so just how much drivers and stuff are you talking about downloading?

OmegaDude

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by NekkidBibleMan:
Win ME is horrible, anytime I try to shut meh pooter down I get a BSOD
</font>

Emmm if you have an Nvidia card with your system you need to get a new driver. Apparently there is a fault in the old one that ME dosent like.

On a different note, i have being using ME since janurary and only had 2 failures. one was a simple fault in a piece of code i wrote, and the second was when my hard drive failed. So i think it is an ok OS, if you have enough resources on your system.

WhiteWashMan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Castor Troy:
It was on the machine when I bought it, Eamo old chap, I didn't install it. Anyway thanks for the help guys - I got around the Outlook Express problem by downloading a shareware newsreader which is about ten times faster and easier to use than OE so that's sorted

As for Win2k, it's supposed to be very game un-friendly and that's what I mostly do on this comp, so just how much drivers and stuff are you talking about downloading?</font>

hmmm, not at all. we generally play the same games and i havent had a single issue with any of them. any problems i have had have been ingame problems like slow downs in black and white and the likes. you have isdn, or work to download stuff, so youre ok on that front, the only really annoyinh thing is that you have to download drivers for everything. but sure you do **** all in work anyway so no problems to you there

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Your Dungeon Is On An Incline;
Irate Creatures Cannot Play Marbles

Shiminay

I use Win2K for everything (which is a pain ni the **** since my scanner is ancient and won't work with it), but I've never had any grief with games (once all was patched and latest drivers installed).

Verdict: Use Win2K

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All the best!
Dav
@B^)
We were all set for a game of Ice Hockey when Frank Williams says "Sorry lads, I've forgotten my skates!"
[honey i] violated [the kids]
Tribes 2 Goodness
The Dawn of the Beefy King approaches...

TwoShedsJackson

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by OmegaDude:
Emmm if you have an Nvidia card with your system you need to get a new driver. Apparently there is a fault in the old one that ME dosent like.

On a different note, i have being using ME since janurary and only had 2 failures. one was a simple fault in a piece of code i wrote, and the second was when my hard drive failed. So i think it is an ok OS, if you have enough resources on your system.</font>

Do you have an url for this nVidia driver by any chance? Ta.

Stephen

I use the detonator 12.20 drivers in win2k - works great. I have a 3dmark2001 score in win2k that's a few hundred marks higher than the score i got in 98/me with the 7.52 detonators

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- Munch

OmegaDude

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Castor Troy:
Do you have an url for this nVidia driver by any chance? Ta.

</font>

emmm i tried http://www.nvidia.com and that looks like the right page, i don't know your model though *Shrugs*
OD

SHADOW

yeah I've used both too and win2k is leagues ahead of ME.....

Its what I use now on my own machine and I have never had any probs with it. Just make sure you have all the latest drivers.

N

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If the bottom falls out of your world, drink Andrews and the world will fall out of your bottom!!
games?

bubbles

I use ME, and I have no problems with it at all. Now I don't go installing any junk ever, just games etc and it hardly ever crashes.

Only thing I.E5 isn't the best on it, have to alt tab del and end task about twice a night.

Dont be at yourself

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by OmegaDude:
Emmm if you have an Nvidia card with your system you need to get a new driver. Apparently there is a fault in the old one that ME dosent like.</font>

ooh, that must be it, cheers
I never get around to updating them


btw, another plus point for Win2k: shadows on yer cursor.

click on this series of underlined words to read an article on Win2k for gaming

---

Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham! You just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, bat man."
hello.

tHE vAGGABOND

seconded on WinMe being crap!

I put it on my Laptop here as I need a small 2 gig windows partition for Win based client apps we use here at work. I had it on for 24 hours and it crashed like crazy! Win98/98se/NT and 2k are all fine. So I just put 2k back on even if it is a bit slow and stuff - sp2 has made things a bit better.

I still say as a general OS the latest linux releases beat the pants off Win 2k and Me providing you know what to do to get the most out of them - I freely say that *nix is not a 'for dummies' OS..YET

sutty

Conor if you go to http://www.3dchipset.com you will then need to go to bata drivers, and so on. 12.xx look to be ok at the moment (I've been running them for a few days now). They are good for games and are working well with dx8a.

GL

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Ciaran Sutcliffe
aka: sutty
[HIV]sutty
For a good time goto:
http://www.hotinternetvirgins.com

[This message has been edited by sutty (edited 28-05-2001).]

JustHalf

When I was working down in a Cyber Cafe we installed it on all the new machines heading out... slow as a salty snail, and just as much fluff. Personally, Win95OSR2 never caused me any trouble, or Win2K.

NEVER use Win98 first edition, btw. Buggy as two-day old meat.

Quorthon

Guys

I've had ME on my system for months now - I've had literally weeks of uptime running Seti etc 24/7, switching out to CS & Q3 etc & back to seti/f@h with only a few problems.

initially it was a bugger, I got that BSOD on shutdown thingy as well, but the latest Nvidia driver releases fixed this for me.

I would like to use 2K, but found that couldnt get Stac Compression to work wiv me ISDN. This was turning my 50-70 ping to Barrysworld into 100-120, which is a big difference, so I switched back to ME. Does anyone know how to get Stac going with 2k?


Q