Introduction
Windows Millennium Edition – hmm. When Win2k was released not long ago, it had more bugs than Africa, Just 5 hours after installing it; I went back to Win98 because it was so full of glitches. I was more confident installing ME thought, because it is essentially Win98 2nd Edition with a new front end and some extra features. I tested the new OS in two ways – firstly using it as an upgrade installing over Win98, and then as a clean install after formatting C (you see what I do for hexus.com – format c:).Upgrade – Install over Win98 Installing ME as an upgrade to Win98 was very easy. The only problem I had was that it insisted that I uninstalled my Internet Firewall and port protection software before it would continue, but apart from that it went on fine. Installation took 35 minutes from start to finish, which isn’t bad, although it seemed to take forever to set up the plug and play hardware in my machine (soundcard, video card, network adapter).
My first impressions, and exact works to my brother who was watching were: “well that was a waste of time”. I didn’t notice much of a difference in boot up speed; in fact the only difference was a cheap looking Windows ME splash screen replacing the Win98 one. Upon loading into windows, I was forced to watch a 4-minute movie (pics of healthy looking Americans with some music), which couldn’t be exited. After this waste of 4 mins, it closed, and the only difference was the icons on the desktop, and the fact that Network Neighbourhood is now called ‘My Network Places’. Yes, that sounds more professional. My Network Places.
Into Explorer: exactly the same except the buttons are slightly smaller. Fire up IE: well, this new version 5.5 isn’t any different is it? Into control panel – well here’s a difference. Displayed at first are hyperlinks to the most common things: fonts, add/remove programs, etc. In small letter on the left is ‘view all control panel options’. Click this and we’re back to familiar territory.
To cut a long story short, I experienced no difference whatsoever in performance after installing Windows ME as an upgrade over Win98. If anything, my system was slower. A couple different icons, and a new media player, as well as some extra games. In conclusion, I would not recommend installing WinME as an upgrade unless you like to be at the cutting edge of windows. It simply isn't worth the effort and loss of support (if you install a warez or beta version) until it is released in this country. The bonus (if you consider it a bonus) is that I now have WinME on all my machines, without having to reinstall any applications.