Microsoft has been pumping our operating systems for a long time now. We have seen the release of Windows 98 and it’s renditions. We have seen Windows 2000. And, now we are seeing Windows
Millennium Edition, or Windows ME for short. Well, I know people who are still back in Windows 95. There idea is, “Well, it works for me. They haven’t yet come out with anything that would make me need to upgrade.” And, this is true, for some. With the
exception of Windows 2000, the Windows 9x series has been really a series of service packs and incremental improvements. Well, Windows ME continues this Microsoft tradition. This new OS bears mighty resemblance to Windows 98SE, with only a few cosmetic changes.
So What’s Different?
Windows ME is basically the Windows 98 kernel with some cosmetic changes. When you first boot up Windows ME, in fact, you will wonder what the difference is. Of course, Microsoft has incorporated some bug fixes, as they always do, which is why I call this a glorified service pack. But, the plus side to this is that you can still use all your old drivers, if you want. I installed right over the top of Windows 98. All of my drivers worked the same. Even my dual-head features of the Matrox G400 worked as they do in Win98. This is contrary to all the headaches associated with making things work in Windows 2000, since that OS has a different
kernel.
As part of this “service pack”, Microsoft made some changes to make it all “pretty”. The first thing you’ll notice is the new boot-up BMP logo. Ahhh, isn’t that cute?! Woo-hoo! Not really.
I could tell that Microsoft made an effort to decrease total boot time. It was shorter than Windows 98 boot-time by a couple seconds, but if you have a really loaded-down system, it will still take a while to load up.
I surfed around the OS for awhile in order to find the differences. Some of them are:
| The Control Panel has been re-designed to be more user-friendly. When you open it up, it shows you a descriptive list of the most commonly needed sections, as seen in the screenshot. Clicking on “View all Control Panel Options” will show up the traditional control panel in all it’s blah glory. They added a few icons, including a shortcut to the Automatic Updates window. Here you can control the settings regarding downloading updates from Microsoft. The other new icon is a shortcut to the Taskbar and Menu settings, also accessible from the Start Menu. |
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Windows ME comes with new some and updated programs. Of course, WinME |
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