this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

There used to be two types of "Windows" in existence. The one based on NT which we use today, and the Win9x line that was basically just an advanced GUI on top of aging MS-DOS. Windows ME was the last of that line, where they tried to pack it full of modern features we've come to expect, but still on top of the unstable DOS core. It was an abomination.

I remember just skipping it and going from Win98SE straight to XP. That was the day 80s-style computing died for me, in 2002.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yup. We had a 98 "home" PC that my mom, brother, and I used, then my dad had his PC for his graphics/web design work. He went to "upgrade" to ME, swore a bunch, then reverted to 98 until XP came out. I don't think I ever fiddled with ME, but I'm glad I didn't have to from all the horror stories. Granted I was maybe 12ish when all that happened, and I really only played games then (and finding certain images on certain websites once I discovered that was a thing), but I didn't get into computers, tinkering, and Linux until high school when I got my own computer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It was notoriously buggy and didn't offer any reason to upgrade. Everyone stayed on 95, 98, 98se or migrated to Windows 2000. XP offered a compelling reason to upgrade with improved directx support and the rebase onto 2000 tech.

I beta tested 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP and a few other things.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

My usage lead to 3-4 blue-screen crashes every single day. Keep in mind a system reboot took up to 10 minutes, and there was no such thing as autosave. Back then Microsoft’s victims were conditioned to think this was quirky and unavoidable. This was on a vertically integrated, pre-built product from Gateway (covered in cow-print but that’s a cultural peculiarity from a different time) so there was no unsupported hardware to blame.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I remember the cowprint logos on computers :) was just a bit too young to use ME but I remember seeing it around. Wild how they charged money for that. I feel like people are still traumatized by this at my work. They’re afraid that if they touch something it will break and crash.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

This, but on a SONY VAIO desktop. The switch to Windows 2000 was a godsend for that system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A lot of that instability was just budget 90s prebuilts being garbage. Gateway was close to eMachines tier as far as stability went. You had to spend 50-100% more money for something like a Micron desktop if you wanted reliability, or just build your own from reliable parts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Lol. I remember playing the original Sims on a a windows ME emachine. It was a terrible computer but I was just happy to have access to games and the internet.