width=307> | One of things Microsoft is touting about WinME is the movie-editing capabilities. Yes, in their effort to make Windows the only thing you need on your computer, they included video-editing software. I didn’t actually use it, but you can pull movies down from a video camera and actually edit the scenes, splice them together with fades, add text, and all sorts of crap. Pretty cool. |
| Microsoft re-vamped the Help section to something that’s a lot better looking and actually somewhat useful. Fully searchable, you can do everything from learning specific features, or take the Tour through the OS. When you click on System Information, it pops up in this Help interface as well. The Help section also lets you go out to the web and look for help, via the “Assisted Support” link. | 
width=307> |
Games. Yeah, they are not including Quake or anything.
The games with Windows always suck. But, at least they included more than just
Solitaire and Mindsweeper. They added a few new titles as well as some where you
actually connect to a game server and play someone else. I played the Pinball
game for a bit. It was actually kinda addicting (don’t laugh!).
As far as utilities go, they have included a couple which I thought were useful. One is the System Restore tool. Using this, you can create backup images of your system from specified times. Then, later, if you run into trouble, you can use the same utility to restore your system to one of those backup images.
The other that I saw was the Networking Wizard. With this thing, it takes the pain out of forming a simple home network. You can also use it to enable internet sharing, so you can share an internet connection over the network. Very cool.
Stability
Stability is something that has not really improved since Win98 in this OS. WinME is a tad more stable, I guess, but, give it some time, and it becomes sluggish like any Win9x product. In order to prevent something like that, you’d have to use Win2000, or a Linux OS. Being that WinME is built on the same basic kernal, though, as Win98, don’t expect anything major.
Conclusion
So, as we have found, WinME is a nice operating system. I look at is a all-in-one service pack for Win98. It has updated utilities, a few new ones, and some cosmetic changes. WinME is
definitely geared toward the home user with a lean toward multimedia. Microsoft has recognized that people love multimedia and that that is where computing is going. With features like movie-editing, the enhanced Media Player, and the embedding of IE into the OS, WinME kisses up to the home user in every way. At the same time, it provides the more
tech-savvy user with cool utilities such as the Home Networking Wizard and System Restore.
Some may wonder why they would need to buy a “new OS”
that is really just an incremental upgrade from Win98. This is a valid point. If
you keep Win98 updated, it has pretty much the same functionality as WinME. But,
in the interest of keeping fully up to date and having a few new toys, I could
recommend WinME to the home user.
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