Rating: 
Summary: Well I'm just addicted to it
Review: I can't stop using this upgrade!! Someone help me, I've been clicken away for three days now (non-stop. I want this software installed on every computer in the world. Just don't produce any more upgrades, I just can't take it.
Rating: 
Summary: Do a "clean" install FOR SURE!
Review: After installing the upgrade on my win98se system, things pretty much went to complete heck right away. I don't know if it is related, I'll let you decide, but right after the install my system became totally inoperable. I have a very capable gateway with a 30gb hard drive, 128mb ram, and basically my motherboard stopped being able to read my drives (any of them!). Related? I don't know for sure, but when 2 + x = 4, it is pretty convincing what x was. Anyways, I had to SEND my cpu to gateway for servicing because the issue was so severe, and once I got it back I wiped my hard drive clean and did a complete install of ME. After that, it seems pretty cool. Nice new features, good feel, overall it is pretty slick, but I will never forget the hassles I experienced with it a few minutes after installing this thing. BOTTOM LINE: if you are thinking about this product to upgrade your current win98 - DO A CLEAN INSTALL! Wipe that hard disk clean, format it, THEN slip this upgrade disk into your cd-rom and follow the instructions. It's hard to fix the engine of a car while it's running, it's much easier to shut the car off, take out the engine, and THEN put in a new one.
Rating:
Summary: A weird issue
Review: I installed ME several weeks ago and just wanted to comment on one weird thing I noticed. For some reason, my little Netsonic "web accelerator" program from Netboost, Inc. has stopped working. This program caches web pages and does other things to speed up access and load web pages faster when I'm online. Since, probably due to the quality of the local phone lines, I usually don't get anything faster than 31,200 baud, and most of the time is more like 28,800, this was very useful for me. However, Netboost's Netsonic appears not to work with Windows ME after having worked just fine with Windows 98 for over a year. I tried reinstalling it from the original downloaded zip file but no luck. The other suspicious thing is that after I completed the Windows ME install, I would get a status message from the Netsonic program that my system would have to be rebooted for it to work. However, rebooting didn't help and I now get this message every time I boot up. I tried re-installing the program from scratch but this didn't help, I still get the same message. Netsonic still doesn't seem to be working. I find this hard to believe because I doubt this program has anything special that would depend exclusively on Windows 98, and also I can't see that I'm doing anything wrong either in terms of the configuration (there's nothing to configure anyway). As I am a professional NT support person, I usually know what I'm doing with these things (but not always!). Anyway, overall Windows ME has been okay for me, despite being somewhat more unstable. The main thing is that it boots up and shuts down a whole lot faster, and since I turn on my system several times during the day this is useful. I would say it boots up 4 times faster and shuts down 8 times faster, so the difference is considerable. This is due to the remnants of DOS finally being eliminated. So far I would have to say ME for me is liveable. I've read most of the other reviews here and it looks like most people are advised to beware of this upgrade. As I work in the support business I see all the horror stories caused by these sorts of upgrades, so I myself am surprised when these things go relatively smoothly as they did with my system, because I'm basically always prepared for the worst. Fortunately, this one wasn't one of them. Overall, however, I would have to say that the average user should think twice about performing this upgrade, and be prepared to back out if there are too many things that don't work anymore or the system seems markedly more unstable. I have a very plain, vanilla system with not much on it from a major brand name (HP Pavilion) that is only a year old, and as I've mentioned here, even I'm encoutering a few bugs. As long as I'm on the subject I should say one more thing. It is very weird this little program doesn't want to work with ME. Microsoft always gets blamed for these problems but people need to understand they aren't always or entirely Microsoft's fault. It is up to the developer of the program to make sure it is written to Microsoft's standards and technical specifications and follows their recommendations and requirements needed to run with their operating systems. If a developer fails to do this and a substandard program causes issues, this certainly isn't Microsoft's fault. One illustration of this fact is all the driver updates and program upgrades that get issued all the time. These usually aren't to address deficiencies with Microsoft's operating systems so much as problems with the original program code (notwithstanding the fact that Microsoft itself does the same thing--NT 4.0 is up to Service Pack 6).
Rating:
Summary: WinME is a lot better than it is given credit for
Review: I must respectfully disagree with the editor's comments on this release. As long as your hardware is fairly recent, and there are WinME specifics for your peripherals, WinME should be a very compelling upgrade for most Win98 users. I support home users for a living and I see lots of machines. The easiest to debug are WinME machines, no contest. It is a far more stable OS (given the above factors), and just a darn fun one too. And it is easy to recover from operator error. It is far more different from Win98 than many reviews would indicate. This is a very advanced OS, more closely resembling Windows 2000 than Windows 98 in many respects.
Rating: 
Summary: Just Say No
Review: I attempted to load ME as an upgrade to Windows 95 on an older computer, a 200 MHZ Pentium. When the upgrade was complete, Windows ME no longer recognized that I had a CD-ROM and I could not log onto the Internet. Windows ME did not recognize my Network Card, a Linksys Etherfast 10/100 PC Card, and I could not upgrade the driver. Luckily, I could easily uninstall Windows ME and will never again make the mistake of upgrading an operating system. A total waste of money and a piece of software junk.
Rating:
Summary: Got Crash?
Review: PCs would be so much better if Microsoft never existed. Windows Me crashed my computer before I even finished installing it. I have a 3dfx voodoo3 3000 card and windows me, for some reason hated it. I lost count of how many times I had to restart my computer. The biggest mistake I made was not saving my old system files when I installed it, so now I am stuck with it. Let me tell you that running a computer with Windows ME is like running your car without any oil. It lasts for about two minutes before it does some "The program you are using caused an invalid whatever in your thingamagiger." Save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Straight from the Redmond trash file!
Review: Everything you hated about Windows 98, but accelerated!
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the hassle
Review: Installed it as an upgrade to Windows 98SE, now I have multiple crashes and can't stay on the internet for more than 2 minutes without a reboot unless I use Netscape as the browser. Inlcuded video camera software is suspect at best and tells me my system is too slow ... yeah right. Don't buy it...it ain't worth it. If it wasn't for the fact I have loads of Windows 9x software titles to replace, I would have boguht an Apple !
Rating: 
Summary: Peoples Opinions are Like...
Review: This is not so much a Review of Windows ME, which I do run and works fine, but a reminder for those concerned consumers who may happen to get caught in the flame war of whether or not Bill Gates rips people off. Windows ME is as good an OS as a regular user can get that is both familiar to them and easy to use. As for those comments that it "isn't any different" from Windows 98, as far as the User Interface is concerned you're absolutly right, there is no difference in how the OS looks, feels, and is used. That's Microsoft's goal, to have a common user interface. All of the major OS differences are IN the OS. Built in drivers, bug fixes, the ability to use more up to date technology, expanded memory capability, security fixes and the like. All things the user can't see. As for Mr. Kernel32.exe Error. that's not the OS, that is the OEM (original equipment manufacturer). Sorry to burst your bubble.
Rating:
Summary: Hello Error in Kernel32.dll
Review: There is very sketchy industry support for this release of windows. Don't assume that if the software is recommended for 95/98/NT that it will run on ME. It probably won't. I have a brand spanking new P4 with which I can do next to nothing without seeing kernel32.dll errors. ME gracefully handles these by freezing. I had to unplug my computer in order to reboot. Looking on tech support sites (not MS's of course) it is clear that I'm not the only one having problems. Here's a list of what I've found that has conflicts with ME: MS Visio (for 95 and higher version and NT) Visual Cafe (for 95/98/NT) JDK1.2 (for NT/2000, ok, this is prolly my bad) MS Internet explorer MS windows explorer Canon driver for one of it's printers several other programs I don't recall.
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