The Windows Me Experience: Was It THAT Bad?

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 เม.ย. 2020
  • Revisiting the infamous Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition from the year 2000. It's considered by some as the worst Windows operating system, and even one of the biggest flops in tech period. But was Me truly as terrible as its reputation suggests?
    ● LGR links:
    / lazygamereviews
    / lazygamereviews
    / lazygamereviews
    ● Music courtesy of:
    www.epidemicsound.com
    #LGR #Software #Retrospective
  • วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี

ความคิดเห็น • 9K

  • @littlesnowflakepunk855
    @littlesnowflakepunk855 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2678

    My mother was one of the technologically incompetent people recruited to test Windows ME and Microsoft Bob for ease of use, so I feel as though my family is directly responsible for their failures to some extent.

    • @interlace84
      @interlace84 3 ปีที่แล้ว +118

      Depends on the feedback she gave 😄

    • @thebasketballhistorian3291
      @thebasketballhistorian3291 3 ปีที่แล้ว +192

      Someone now has to travel back in time to that era and stop your mom from ever reaching the Microsoft product testing center!

    • @emilyofjane
      @emilyofjane 3 ปีที่แล้ว +251

      Imagine having that be your family’s eternal legacy. “the focus group idiots who helped greenlight Microsoft’s biggest mistakes” lmao

    • @Tobi_DarkKnight
      @Tobi_DarkKnight 3 ปีที่แล้ว +38

      @@thebasketballhistorian3291 i will go back in time for a lot of reasons. Should I stop Windows ME entirely?

    • @carlosdelucia3487
      @carlosdelucia3487 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@Tobi_DarkKnight yes

  • @NinjaRodent
    @NinjaRodent 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2051

    That "head space" skin for media player is the most late 90s thing I have ever seen.

    • @krzysztofczarnecki8238
      @krzysztofczarnecki8238 4 ปีที่แล้ว +110

      So that's what happened to "Where did you learn to fly" head from Cybermorph

    • @TheSuperQuail
      @TheSuperQuail 4 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      Also Lawnmower Man

    • @take5transfat
      @take5transfat 4 ปีที่แล้ว +71

      it’s made for listening to the matrix trilogy soundtracks rlly

    • @JayTohab
      @JayTohab 4 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      Reminds me of the first Xbox’s UI. Nostalgic!

    • @PlymouthNeon
      @PlymouthNeon 4 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      the nostalgia in this video is killing me :(

  • @rodjerdankist1125
    @rodjerdankist1125 2 ปีที่แล้ว +597

    I remember when Windows XP came out...
    Simplified so many things.
    Really was a great OS.

    • @koilamaoh4238
      @koilamaoh4238 2 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      i still use it on my mini netbook xp, as a server, still runs to this day. Love it.

    • @dparent4487
      @dparent4487 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      I feel like I’m the only one who hated xp, it’s so bland and looks like a toy lol

    • @koilamaoh4238
      @koilamaoh4238 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      @@dparent4487 Yea its prety basic but it did a lot of things tho for being sooo basic and bland, but you know, you could always "dress" it up to look nicely even like windows 7,9,10 whatever lol; remember windows 10 is just a fancy dress. Only thing that sucks now, as they progressed, they tried to dumb Down windows and remove features due to the new "mobile" design on phones, they were taking the "APPLE" approach, so it would be dummy proof.

    • @ScottGrammer
      @ScottGrammer ปีที่แล้ว

      @@koilamaoh4238 Nothing is ever idiot-proof, because idiots are so ingenious.

    • @kamerad_marzuki3631
      @kamerad_marzuki3631 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@koilamaoh4238 He's probably still remember how XP was hated when it's released.

  • @michaellay7164
    @michaellay7164 ปีที่แล้ว +142

    I had that exact same computer! That was also my only experience with ME. This brought back a lot of fond memories for me, mostly of Windows Media Player and its goofy skins. Also some miserable memories. Count yourself lucky that you never used that system restore- it was AWFUL. The whole OS became unstable after using it (if it wasn't already).

    • @YouTubePremium-de1km
      @YouTubePremium-de1km ปีที่แล้ว

      Yea system restore was mostly the culprit. I did a fresh install of windows me and disable system restore right away, and it will be as rock solid and maybe even more lovable as windows 98se.

    • @Njazmo
      @Njazmo ปีที่แล้ว

      Yeah, it worked fine a while, then it just become so unstable, that you had to do a clean install after some months. Then i got Win2000, which was NT-based, with NTFS (vs FAT), and that was rock solid, happy days.

    • @grummpyyounggeek
      @grummpyyounggeek ปีที่แล้ว +4

      System Restore in Me had a bug where it broke after September 14th 2001. So if you broke your system before getting the patch, System Restore would go through all the motions but then finish off with that dreaded "Restore Failed" popup. It was soul destroying to wait for so long as it went through the motions only to find it was all for nought.
      I was lumbered with Me on the "new" family PC after we replaced a 5 year old Windows 95 system. Worst still, it was a budget system that could just run Me and it was too underpowered to run XP (plus we had a bunch of hardware which wasn't supported). Combine that with the fact my father (the other main user of the PC) was so upset with how much more unstable Me was from 95, he was reluctant to move across to XP. So I had to suffer around 3 years of Me...
      That was until one day I just bought a new hard drive, upgraded the RAM and installed XP fresh and we moved on. I remember my first day after Windows XP, coming from Me, my first initial reaction was "Why did I suffer for so long!?!"
      On the flipside, Me has taught me excellent diagnostic and troubleshooting skills as that was what I spent most of my computing hours in Me doing!!

    • @mardus_ee
      @mardus_ee ปีที่แล้ว

      ​@@grummpyyounggeek System Restore was a godsend to me, just in case something happened at the office. But I was good at patching the OS via Windows Update, so I never experienced that System Restore bug.

    • @cwf1701
      @cwf1701 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      you don't know bad until you use Vista. If ME was bad, Vista was worse, but what is Funny the best version of Windows (XP) was between the two worst version of Windows.

  • @hazardeur
    @hazardeur 4 ปีที่แล้ว +664

    if you would have told me 20 years ago that in two decades, I will willingly watch a video of a guy installing Win ME for half an hour, I would have called you insane

    • @DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc
      @DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc 3 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      LOL! That's true.

    • @GiorgosTube
      @GiorgosTube 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I pray to the gods of Linux I want be possessed with BSOD

    • @tetsujin_144
      @tetsujin_144 3 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      "I wonder what version of Real Player we'll be up to by then..."

    • @komandoarshad8086
      @komandoarshad8086 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Wait, u guys never use Windows ME before???

    • @stang2184
      @stang2184 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Same, yet here we are hahaha!

  • @Kaucukovnik666
    @Kaucukovnik666 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1482

    "Hey, Windows help system, I have a problem, what should I do?"
    "Did you plug the device in?"
    "Yes."
    "Did you [another blindingly obvious option]?
    "Yes"
    "Windows help was unable to solve your problem. Please contact your administrator." (which is likely you)

    • @christopherpetit1718
      @christopherpetit1718 4 ปีที่แล้ว +191

      To be fair, for most non-computer savvy users "Did you plug the device in and turn it on?" probably solves half of their computer problems.

    • @Trashboat4444
      @Trashboat4444 4 ปีที่แล้ว +118

      That applys to modern Windows as well.

    • @gashetauwu1932
      @gashetauwu1932 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Hello mr turner it's me, mr turner :D

    • @realdragonrude
      @realdragonrude 4 ปีที่แล้ว +30

      cortana can clearly help you with this it's not like cortana is diet coke bonzi buddy or anything

    • @xjohnny1000
      @xjohnny1000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +51

      @@realdragonrude I keep 6 feet away for fear of catching the Cortanavirus.

  • @send2mc
    @send2mc 2 ปีที่แล้ว +77

    There were two things I really liked about Windows ME. The first one was System Restore. I didn't realize how good this was until I went back to Widows 98SE and stuffed up a driver upgrade.
    The second, and much more practical thing, was native support of USB storage. I recently pulled out an my old Win98 and ME PCs. Being able to plug in any USB thumb drive and have instant access to any file in my archives made me use the ME machine much more than the 98 one.

    • @fisk0
      @fisk0 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Has System Restore ever worked properly though? I last had to try to use it with Windows 8.1 a few years ago. And it couldn't load the restore point, so I had to do a fresh reinstall anyway.

    • @send2mc
      @send2mc 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @@fisk0
      I used System Restore many many times. It was very rare that it didn't work. Windows must be so much more sturdy now because I have only used System Restore once or twice in the last five years

    • @thepcuser5469
      @thepcuser5469 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      Wait so Windows Me isn’t bad?

    • @TheDman216
      @TheDman216 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      its driver database was wayy bigger then the legacy stuff before it

  • @paulojorgetadeu2233
    @paulojorgetadeu2233 ปีที่แล้ว +29

    Hello from Portugal, at the time I upgraded from Windows98SE, as in your video, using the blue box version.
    I still have fond memories of that system today, which always worked well with an external 56K modem.🙂

  • @2ExtremeReviews
    @2ExtremeReviews 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2190

    Can't wait for "The Windows Vista Experience: Was it THAT Bad?".

    • @Anonsage3
      @Anonsage3 4 ปีที่แล้ว +258

      No tbh, UAC was new and people werent used to having to manage security.

    • @xtreme350nm3
      @xtreme350nm3 4 ปีที่แล้ว +146

      I just installed it on an Athlon XP 3000+ with 1GB of RAM and... it actually runs faster on that thing than I remembered. It's not blindingly fast, but I can't describe it as anything other than snappy once it's done booting up. Remove half that memory to keep in line with XP spec (512MB was really common) and it chugs like there's no tomorrow though.

    • @jameswalker199
      @jameswalker199 4 ปีที่แล้ว +111

      Don't forget 8/8.1 and 10
      Particularly the Windows 10 upgrade nag that would upgrade the computer upon clicking the red X close button.

    • @jameswalker199
      @jameswalker199 4 ปีที่แล้ว +68

      Anonymous
      UAC was pretty annoying when it popped up for seemingly no reason. Once you understood why you could forgive it, but sometimes it would pop up for a thing already installed with seemingly no need to access higher system stuff, which would really confuse people at best, and downright annoy them at worst.

    • @DosonTheGreat
      @DosonTheGreat 4 ปีที่แล้ว +60

      @@jameswalker199 Wasn't 8.1 actually not that bad, but it didn't have very good support because poor adoption, because regular window 8 sucked so much?

  • @CragScrambler
    @CragScrambler 4 ปีที่แล้ว +286

    "All these terrible windows media player skins, just terrible"
    Gets me right in the feels.

    • @TServo2049
      @TServo2049 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      CragScrambler I still get nostalgic for that fountain visualization.

    • @virgenfj
      @virgenfj 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Winamp: Hold my beer

    • @wohlhabendermanager
      @wohlhabendermanager 4 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      @@virgenfj Winamp really whipped the Llama's ass, though.

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      AIMP is my favorite because of the conversion tool. I also like the simplicity of the skins

    • @usagi67
      @usagi67 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      NOBODY used the skins (maybe 0.1% of the users).

  • @kevin.m213
    @kevin.m213 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

    The fact that you've got a gateway crt monitor and Roland speakers made my day. This feels just like playing windows 98/ME games when I was younger. As terrible as this OS was with stability I loved it!

  • @ThatFuckinGame
    @ThatFuckinGame 2 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    Windows Me was part of my childhood. I found the name super neat back then. The millennium edition.
    Was my fist OS where I played Simcity, the first age of empires, Counter Strike 1.5 and 1.6.
    I loved it. This video surely took me back when I was 6 years old. In early 2001

  • @llcoolray3000
    @llcoolray3000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +366

    "Now there's a startup I haven't heard in a very long time."
    "Do you know Windows Millennium Edition?"
    "Well, of course I know it. It's ME."
    10:50

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      "These aren't the Windows you're looking for"

    • @Ricardofox12
      @Ricardofox12 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Nice

    • @2Scribble
      @2Scribble 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      As Maul said to Obi-Wan after he killed his master - let's let Qui-Gons be Qui-Gons

    • @TServo2049
      @TServo2049 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      llcoolray3000 Actually, I do not associate ME with its normal startup sound. The company that builds our computers set the startup sound for my ME tower to this loud bombastic jingle that would blow your ears out if you had the speakers up too loud. For years, I believed that WAS the normal ME startup jingle, and the piano jingle was only in 2000. I wish I could find it again...

    • @Lawofimprobability
      @Lawofimprobability 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I'm so old, I remember desktops caked in the tar from when people smoked in offices.

  • @jmalmsten
    @jmalmsten 4 ปีที่แล้ว +367

    "Unknown has caused a problem in unknown. Unknown is closed"
    I still remember that oh so informative error message from a friends WinME computer back then...

    • @rwdplz1
      @rwdplz1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +46

      At least it told you something closed, instead of just 'Something Happened.'

    • @saransds0082
      @saransds0082 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Better than Windows 10 Error Messages

    • @xsc1000
      @xsc1000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +28

      You can get this error message in every version from Windows 3.X to Me. "Unknown" is displayed instead of missing driver description text. There are also similar versions like unknown has caused problem because unknown was working. I also like error message when printing: Error: Operation completed succesfully. :-)

    • @Dragonblaster1
      @Dragonblaster1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +49

      "No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue" is my favourite.

    • @Goabnb94
      @Goabnb94 4 ปีที่แล้ว +33

      "...has performed an illegal operation"
      Should I call the police?

  • @infernal_monkey
    @infernal_monkey 2 ปีที่แล้ว +37

    I genuinely don't remember having any major issues with Windows ME at the time, and I was kinda surprised as the years went by to hear how bad its reputation was! I upgraded from 95 though, so it felt like a gigantic upgrade.

    • @bchristian85
      @bchristian85 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      It came out after Windows 2000 and was more of a service pack for Windows 98. Plus, a lot of programs did cause stability issues with it. Windows 9x in general has a lot of those kind of problems. Given how quickly ME was replaced by XP, it should have never been a standalone release.

    • @JeffreyPiatt
      @JeffreyPiatt 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      Windows ME was 98SE patched with code from Windows NT 5.0, disabled access to real mode MS - DOS basically emulating a NT environment, the first version of system restore and Movie maker

  • @YALE70
    @YALE70 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    I was too young to remember all the ins and outs of my family's Me machine (a Dell Dimension 8100 to be exact), but I do recall it being the only computer we've ever owned to be utterly crippled by malware (and probably just regular use). I think the PC was only 3-4 years old before we replaced it with two XP towers that went strong until we finally retired them in 2012-2013.

  • @thedarkenergy
    @thedarkenergy 3 ปีที่แล้ว +584

    I knew the Windows ME key by heart - that's how often I had to reinstall it growing up with two younger siblings.

    • @venom74799
      @venom74799 3 ปีที่แล้ว +43

      Jesus Christ I did the same thing. Kernel 32 error was my life in college and it was a miracle I got anything done due to it.

    • @memescoep8851
      @memescoep8851 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      I have the same thing for the windows 95 product key (VMs though)

    • @retropcs88
      @retropcs88 3 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      My windows 95 code is 11195-0000000 00000. And yes, it actually works

    • @Kilpe78
      @Kilpe78 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Same with 98se and I still remember it.

    • @retropcs88
      @retropcs88 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @Jimmy S The first field is a manufacture date

  • @WackyH
    @WackyH 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1426

    Remember:
    FARTS-BALLS-FARTS-BALLS-FARTS is a valid Windows Me product key.

    • @bradlauk1419
      @bradlauk1419 3 ปีที่แล้ว +183

      This made my garbage week just a little happier

    • @SecondSunofficial
      @SecondSunofficial 3 ปีที่แล้ว +82

      @@bradlauk1419 everything ok?

    • @CoryDickes
      @CoryDickes 3 ปีที่แล้ว +45

      I kind of want to spin up a vm and try this

    • @plaguis1391
      @plaguis1391 3 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @@CoryDickes it won't work

    • @kimikothetanuki314
      @kimikothetanuki314 3 ปีที่แล้ว +93

      @@plaguis1391 you don't know that you dishwashing machine

  • @assafrecu321
    @assafrecu321 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    its a complete joy to see the kind of equipment (GW CRT screen, model-M kbd and Roland - no less !!! - speakers) you are using Clint ! keep up the good work man ! Wish I knew how to get that kind of stuff where I live...

  • @personnel5757
    @personnel5757 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Thanks so much LGR for your fantastic material - and production quality :) Also your Duke Nukem voice is amazing. You are a true voice actor!

  • @robertleeluben
    @robertleeluben 4 ปีที่แล้ว +661

    I remember some joke ad that went along the lines of "Microsoft is proud to announce the combination of Windows CE, ME and NT... Windows CEMENT"

    • @DGTelevsionNetwork
      @DGTelevsionNetwork 4 ปีที่แล้ว +54

      I found it! th-cam.com/video/9rmevy8B_Wc/w-d-xo.html

    • @cassandralyris4918
      @cassandralyris4918 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@DGTelevsionNetwork OMG that is great. I hope these comments get upvoted for more views for that!

    • @martinmurd4495
      @martinmurd4495 4 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      Windows CEMeNT - As hard as a rock, and dumb as a brick.

    • @matthewrease2376
      @matthewrease2376 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      I have a pre-setup Windows 3.11 installation in DOSBox and it came with that image. I'm I remember correctly, it said "as hard as a brick, as dumb as a rock"

    • @veggiet2009
      @veggiet2009 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      It would be interesting to see the boot times comparison on a machine with harddisk.
      I remember seeing "Me" on computers at the store, but I don't think I ever used it on a computer. My family was happy with 98, until we bought a new computer when XP came out

  • @JoeyIgnacio
    @JoeyIgnacio 4 ปีที่แล้ว +508

    Any 90s kid like myself would sit for hours looking at the effects on music

    • @hazardeur
      @hazardeur 4 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      getting high to that shit was an experience for sure

    • @Jojje94
      @Jojje94 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      spider's last moment, strawberryaid, dance of the freaky circles..

    • @Roanoak
      @Roanoak 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I would too but I would also search online for all the custom player skins I was obsessed with skins for my computer, For every application I could get a skin for it I had one

    • @JoeyIgnacio
      @JoeyIgnacio 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@Roanoak I was never able to hook up my computer to the internet unfortunately. Only one computer in the house had Internet access, and it was in my parents bedroom.And it was dial up

    • @janfischer2844
      @janfischer2844 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Joey Ignacio I’ve managed to do that but I didn’t know what I clicked and my home page became a porn website and I had no idea how to change it, one day I was playing with my little girl friend and when I opened IE she saw the website and I was embarrassed as fuck, thank god she is my wife now.....

  • @angelobrattoli4663
    @angelobrattoli4663 ปีที่แล้ว +33

    I upgraded Win 98 to Win 98SE to Win ME to Win XP all with no problem. I liked the multimedia aspects of ME and was able to game on it (3DFx Voodoo 2) with no problem.

    • @TheDman216
      @TheDman216 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      you missed 2k.. its was great

  • @MoeChicken
    @MoeChicken ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Seeing those classic desktop themes made me feel all tingly inside. I still tweak the heck out of my UI these days because of those themes. Aaaah memories…

  • @mfbfreak
    @mfbfreak 4 ปีที่แล้ว +206

    It always makes me feel very melancholic, when you have a fresh install of an old version of windows, and all those new and shiny internet connected programs can't connect to anything anymore. Gone are MSN messenger and all those games.

    • @deadturret4049
      @deadturret4049 4 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      Yeah I feel that. The passage of time sucks.

    • @turbojoe2
      @turbojoe2 4 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Heh, I still have my MSN's saved on floppy from 98'. And only on floppy. Because well no one else will figure it out now. Almost no one.

    • @terry6131
      @terry6131 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I still have Jazz Jackrabbit in my collection, plus me, 98 1/2, 95. OS/2 Warp if your feeling a bit insane. But dumped all the 3.1 / 3.11 floppies

    • @turbojoe2
      @turbojoe2 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@terry6131 Heh, I still have floppy copies of Win 3.11. And they still work!

  • @manley1979
    @manley1979 3 ปีที่แล้ว +331

    "This program has performed an illegal operation." - this used to be the bane of IT existence

    • @Dumb_Killjoy
      @Dumb_Killjoy 3 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Did you ever see ME have icons and popups from the Start Menu, and programs, stay on the screen and stack? I did on my first day or so of using ME.

    • @IAmAnEvilTaco
      @IAmAnEvilTaco 3 ปีที่แล้ว +38

      User: “I want to play this game”
      Me: “wait, that’s illegal.”

    • @tecc9999
      @tecc9999 3 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      i wonder who wrote the operating system rules and regulations

    • @FireballFlame
      @FireballFlame 3 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      The message that used to scare me as a child was that really dumb "the file may become unusable" warning you get when you try to rename a file and change its extension.

    • @bortverde
      @bortverde 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@FireballFlame Isn't this present even in present days?

  • @Baylough.Technologies
    @Baylough.Technologies ปีที่แล้ว +5

    My grandmother was the one who got me into technology when I was younger. I remember going through all her discs and floppys and ALWAYS wanting to play the "Diamond Game". Referring to Windows ME Installation CD 😂
    I don't think ME is as bad as alot of people make it out to be. I think it just came at a really weird time right before one of the biggest operating systems of all time .. XP🏆
    Awesome video as always brother! Your laugh is the best!😂

  • @bradsmithstudios8881
    @bradsmithstudios8881 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    My parents were always on the cutting edge always getting the latest greatest hardware and os, my dads first computer was a Tandy in 1984. Your channel is like reliving my childhood.

  • @jagerbolt90
    @jagerbolt90 3 ปีที่แล้ว +192

    One day, we all played Space Cadet pinball for the last time without even knowing it...

    • @todogenial119
      @todogenial119 3 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Just downloaded an xp VM, thanks

    • @truefailure6359
      @truefailure6359 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Internal and external crying 😭

    • @memenest468
      @memenest468 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      You can always download VM and then install XP on it, and i bet someone made Space Cadet compatible with W10

    • @memenest468
      @memenest468 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@looneyburgmusic Really, i didn't know tbh

    • @ilkeryoldas
      @ilkeryoldas 9 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      You can still play it, works on win 10/11

  • @VideoAmericanStyle
    @VideoAmericanStyle 4 ปีที่แล้ว +228

    The whole personal-focused “Me” branding was a direct response to Apple’s then-new iMac. Surprised you didn’t mention that!

    • @Metal-Possum
      @Metal-Possum 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Hold up. Somebody actually thought OS9 had a fighting chance?

    • @rockettaco
      @rockettaco 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Alex Paulsen IDK man. I grew up on OS9 and classic OS X. It was pretty fun. And yes, we had games. And yes, we could unzip things.

    • @Metal-Possum
      @Metal-Possum 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@rockettaco OS9 was awful, but what's worse is Apple insisted on saving the NSF formatting of their drives and fudging it into the Mach (BSD) kernel they "appropriated" for OS X. Linus Torvalds (of Linux fame) spoke out rather heavily against such a stupid and inefficient decision. Sure, he's a Linux guy and probably has a bias, but he gives credit to other operating systems where credit is due.

    • @damnyousalazar
      @damnyousalazar 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@calebcooper Apple's Mac line was on an upswing prior to the iPhone. Just a few years prior they had switched to Intel processors, and the iPod and iTunes had also brought more attention to the company in the early 2000s. That's relevant because they both worked better with a Mac than Windows, which, in conjunction with colorful hardware and marketing, had made their product line popular with college students and teens as laptops and desktops became the norm in dorms. The switch to Intel also made them a more practical option for the education setting due to improved support and feature parity for Mac versions of software from Microsoft, Adobe, and IBM. It didn't hurt that Vista was somewhat of a disappointment.

  • @RediffusionMusic
    @RediffusionMusic ปีที่แล้ว +18

    8:06 - quite neat that it plays the Windows NT 4.0 boot sound!

  • @blinddog1212
    @blinddog1212 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Great video, as always! I can't recall if we had ME, but those themes are good fun. I like your point about having hardware well-matched to the OS. Any plans for some Windows 2000 love?

  • @hueyiroquois3839
    @hueyiroquois3839 2 ปีที่แล้ว +345

    When I first got internet, I had to reinstall the OS about once a month. I thought that the problem was malware, but now I realize that the problem was Windows Me.

    • @raketman101
      @raketman101 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      I had the same, my neighbor couldn't believe it, he learned me everything I knew then

    • @Keshro
      @Keshro 2 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      @@raketman101 *taught

    • @DKCGamerGirl
      @DKCGamerGirl 2 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      I remember having to reinstall Me so much after it would just freeze up on the startup screen that, to this day, I get nervous if any Windows OS takes a longer than normal time to get past the start screen. And the Me startup screen logo just flat out gives me nightmares. I think I must have Windows Me PTSD from it.

    • @yizarg
      @yizarg 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      If you used LimeWire, Napster, etc. it was probably both.

    • @DKCGamerGirl
      @DKCGamerGirl 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @Benita Shabibo I remember having to hunt for DLL files for programs to run properly all the time. Such a pain. XD SP2 for XP was such a great update for stability!

  • @WigWoo1
    @WigWoo1 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1330

    I grew up with Windows ME and I don't remember any problems... Though I was like 5-9 years old

    • @jesus2621
      @jesus2621 3 ปีที่แล้ว +61

      Same here never had any problem

    • @CraigBaker96837
      @CraigBaker96837 3 ปีที่แล้ว +59

      I have to agree. I had a 10yo Gateway PC that ran ME, and it booted up and operated much faster than our HP that ran Vista.

    • @HabadzaKalfa
      @HabadzaKalfa 3 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      I have a similar Millennium Compaq as in the beginning of the video with the original Windows Me installed. It works fine with its default setup.
      However, at some point I went testing on how some components would go in addition, like alternate graphics cards and sound cards and whatnot (it doesn't actually have that much slots available to swap things). I can't remember which hardware configuration was it, but with some parts connected the Windows startup took literally hours, and I thought the HDD had broken all the sudden or that I had awakened some slumbering ancient God's computer virus.
      But I guess no, since everything ran smoothly again after removing all additional components. Maybe it was a driver issue (and it was virtually impossible to change the drivers or anything in that state). Might some day experiment a bit in case I'd be able to repeat that state and figure out what actually caused it.

    • @nathanheaverlo9626
      @nathanheaverlo9626 3 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      I too was around 9-10 years old when my family bought a new pc with Windows ME on it. It was a Gateway PC (yes i know), it actually worked pretty good out of the box, especially watching DVDs which was huge for us. The problems started when we stuffed a mid range AGP graphics card, a few games on it, along with Microsoft Office (Microsoft Works back then). Had so many system crashes, attempts to use system restore, or that ugly white desktop "Safe Mode". It was really good for basic use, but for more stability and reliability we upgraded to XP Professional when it came out.

    • @cata208
      @cata208 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      u old shit

  • @TalesofthePlayer
    @TalesofthePlayer 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    These are all pure nostalgia trips, I still have my computer with Windows XP, I chose to keep it after getting an upgrade many 'many' years ago and so glad i kept hold of it as I am plan on getting it cleaned up and made into the base retro system for my older games.
    Love your channel bud, very entertaining to watch and learn new things about old systems.

  • @scottwinterroth
    @scottwinterroth 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    I remember upgrading to ME. I actually thought it was a slight improvement. But yeah, nothing major. I also remember buying the upgrade and then being disappointed that it was basically the same as the previous version.

  • @Darkdaej
    @Darkdaej 4 ปีที่แล้ว +199

    Windows ME error message: "Unknown has encountered an unknown error and must be closed. Cause: Unknown."

    • @WindowsOnWindows
      @WindowsOnWindows 4 ปีที่แล้ว +52

      Windows 10: "Something happened."

    • @travis653
      @travis653 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I still deal with that today.

    • @elerileigh7926
      @elerileigh7926 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      meanwhile in linux land: "nothing is happening because nothing is wrong. sure... we don't have the exact program you want, but here's a free open source version that does all of the same stuff... but a little differently... and if you can get used to it, we do pretty good~"

    • @nintendoeats
      @nintendoeats 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@elerileigh7926 I think you are oversimplifying FOSS a bit there, though I certainly appreciate the verbosity of Linux :p

    • @EdwardWeissbard
      @EdwardWeissbard 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      😂

  • @AvianSavara
    @AvianSavara 3 ปีที่แล้ว +355

    Throughout all the negativity and stuff, one thing I love most about this era is how I can satisfy my morbid curiosity about expensive technological artifacts by having some very dedicated TH-camrs like LGR do it for me at no expense.

    • @NaokisRC
      @NaokisRC 2 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      To be fair, if you became a patron or youtube supporter, then you can help him to bring your more videos about expensive stuff :D

    • @Dumb_Killjoy
      @Dumb_Killjoy 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

      You can run older operating systems on virtual machines. I did that with ME a few years ago and it was horrible (ME, not the VM).

  • @pablofederico1978
    @pablofederico1978 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    I had a really good experience with Windows Me, it resolved some issues that I had with my creative video blaster graphics card on windows 98 and the restore function worked very well, I used it more than once to fix problems that I generated myself. My old pentium 1 233 with 32mb of ram had no issues with it

    • @RandomBitzzz
      @RandomBitzzz 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      I had similar experiences with it. I don't know if a lot of problems people had stemmed from upgrading from 98 (I did a clean install). It "just worked" for me.
      All the same, I was excited when XP came out.

    • @nthgth
      @nthgth ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yeah it's probably somewhat over hyped like a lot of stuff talked about on the Internet. However I did have more issues with me (factory) ME machine than any other computer I've used, and they went away when I upgraded it to the fantastic XP.

  • @slow26gtr
    @slow26gtr 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Windows ME was so unstable for me, it actually got me into the subconscious routine of hitting Crtl+S every millisecond pause as I did any Microsoft Office work. I still do it to this day lol

  • @ChrissehCat
    @ChrissehCat 4 ปีที่แล้ว +69

    When I was in high school in the early 2000s, my parents finally bought a home computer, custom built from a local place. They spent close to 2 grand on it. The guy working there was putting cheap components in/putting less in than was ordered figuring dumb people wouldn't realize it (IE Putting half the RAM ordered in. We caught him with that one)
    Windows ME had just come out, and that's what we were supposed to get according to the order reciept, but we ended up with 98SE instead. I mean, not a huge deal and probably a blessing in disguise but still. What a conman. He finally got found out but skipped town before they could do anything to him.

    • @kaydog890
      @kaydog890 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Have you thought about a shorty story, or sending this to Hollywood?

    • @KARAOTI23
      @KARAOTI23 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      That's some breaking bad $h!t right there

  • @Marco_Onyxheart
    @Marco_Onyxheart 4 ปีที่แล้ว +281

    In Dutch, it was known as Windows Meer Ellende, which means "more misery" or "more calamity".

    • @srk93332
      @srk93332 4 ปีที่แล้ว +29

      Marco Meijer In Italy it was known as Windows MErda which it means “Windows Shit”

    • @jakkaphatpasuphan6242
      @jakkaphatpasuphan6242 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      In Thailand, we don't know this version of Windows exists.
      Probably for the better.

    • @jackmcslay
      @jackmcslay 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@srk93332 In Brazil too, and I suspect the french might have given a similar nickname too

    • @SuperHns
      @SuperHns 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Ja dat weet ik ook nog wel ja.

    • @wich1
      @wich1 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Marco Meijer ook wel Windows Meuk Edition

  • @wolfy333sp
    @wolfy333sp ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Great video, started with win 98 myself, was that a Lian li pc=60 case in your video??, I also had one and loved the full alliminium case.

  • @rjd_frostcor3
    @rjd_frostcor3 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    My first PC was the purple Compaq Presario that you owned as well (mine had the ~751mhz AMD Duron processor) and when mentioning it to others (years later while discussing our first loves) I got a lot of the "POS OS" opinions. But when I asked why, I was told that there was a real problem with "memory leaks". I didn't fully understand exactly what that meant back then and I was hoping your video would explain. Instead I got a almost tear jerking ride back down through the turn of the century computing I cut my teeth on. Thanks for that and thanks for not dragging my finicky, but ultimately dependable WinME (Koyuki as she came to be known) even more so through the mud than she already has.

  • @polygondwanaland8390
    @polygondwanaland8390 4 ปีที่แล้ว +329

    I decided to pause and read the article at 2:32 for the laughs
    "It's an all but mortal lock none of us will need more than 10GB, even for MP3 collecting nerds like myself"

    • @rfvtgbzhn
      @rfvtgbzhn 4 ปีที่แล้ว +32

      Yes, it's kind of funny, i know people who had more than this only in mp3s already at that time.

    • @GSVRemix
      @GSVRemix 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      Heh, I have about 180GB of just audio files (not all are MP3s, but still)

    • @DasPlayer2
      @DasPlayer2 3 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      "home-brewed JPG photos..." Um, yeah, home-brewed.

    • @polygondwanaland8390
      @polygondwanaland8390 3 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      @@GSVRemix I have 47GB of music just on my phone, and that's after transcoding from FLAC to MP3 so everything fits

    • @NickBush24
      @NickBush24 3 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      *laughs in 85.1 GB of music*

  •  4 ปีที่แล้ว +245

    My grandfather had ME on his PC and I really couldn't understand why was everyone shitting on it, it was running flawlessly for me.

    • @MacMelmac
      @MacMelmac 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      For me too. A lot better than 95 and a bit better than 98.

    • @KesMonkey
      @KesMonkey 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      I used to work in computer retail from around the time Windows 3.0 released until shortly after XP released. I'd rather forget the Windows Me days. I had far more issues with Me systems than any other OS.

    • @mkge7206
      @mkge7206 4 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      I had ME for a while and never had a problem with it. It's more or less Windows 98 with a pretty interface and 98 crashed often as well. I feel all of this is just an amplified meme for people born after Vista.
      I think it wasn't so much that ME was bad but rather that XP was so good.

    • @xmaverickhunterkx
      @xmaverickhunterkx 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Same. I guess most people didn't understand how to update their computer back then.

    • @RelakS__
      @RelakS__ 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@xmaverickhunterkx Update? :D I left the 'me' for 'xp', when I figured out that I don't need to restart the whole machine if the Unreal game map editor crashes. If I remember well, my SB16 compatible sound card worked better under me than under 98.

  • @machoman6969
    @machoman6969 8 หลายเดือนก่อน +12

    Windows Control Panel looked amazing and had every feature you need to customize the OS to your liking. I can't wait to see how it will look like in the future!

  • @brickson98m
    @brickson98m 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Before I get into the video, from what I know it, was frowned upon because it looked like Windows 2000, which was NT based, but was actually still DOS based.
    I’m excited and curious to learn more from this video!
    Edit: Oh yeah, I’m with you big time on preferring actual manuals over quick start guides. The best is when there’s both, because if you’re in a hurry and need to get things going, you have the quick start guide. But if you’d like to gain a proper understanding of things before diving in, you could do that too with the full manual. Luckily, now-a-days, with Google constantly at my fingertips, I can get a manual for just about anything in 5 minutes or less.
    Edit 2: Oh man, I used to love movie maker as a kid. My old Dell Inspiron 1100 would beg for mercy during the export process. I think I still have a copy of the Windows Essentials 2012 version of Movie Maker somewhere. Microsoft removed the ability to download it, but luckily I still had a copy in my downloads folder, so I preserved it.
    Edit 3: Oh man, you just made a golden ironic humor meme in Movie Maker in like 30 seconds. That gave me a good laugh.

  • @materialdialectics
    @materialdialectics 3 ปีที่แล้ว +476

    When I was a kid I uninstalled XP to go back to ME at one point. Wtf indeed.

    • @wta1518
      @wta1518 3 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Why?

    • @insertusernamehere8125
      @insertusernamehere8125 3 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      Bruh

    • @materialdialectics
      @materialdialectics 3 ปีที่แล้ว +61

      @@wta1518 I don't even remember, I do remember the reason I reinstalled XP eventually was because movie maker wouldn't work on ME though.

    • @shirkedance
      @shirkedance 3 ปีที่แล้ว +30

      I have done that .. Removed win xp and went back to 2000 And windows ME. And I preferred win 2000 or 98se over windows xp anyday . .
      People that say I am crazy don't know that windows xp was very bad without the xp service pack 1 and 2.
      In fact it was so bad that I didn't install service pack 2 xp on my own pc until 3 years after its release . Win 98se and win 2000 was good enough.

    • @billjones251
      @billjones251 3 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      I uninstalled xp to put back Windows 95 to get a bird hunter game working.

  • @ImNotADeeJay
    @ImNotADeeJay 4 ปีที่แล้ว +102

    in less than four years: Windows 98 SE - Windows ME - Windows 2000 - Windows XP. Then it took five years until Vista came out.

    • @ImNotADeeJay
      @ImNotADeeJay 4 ปีที่แล้ว +24

      @Dave Volsky I skipped Vista altogether, went from XP to 7, then to 10

    • @Ryan-hv3kn
      @Ryan-hv3kn 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      @Dave Volsky Vista ran slow for you because you tried putting it on XP machines. Vista on appropriate hardware runs just as good as Windows 7

    • @Walking_Death
      @Walking_Death 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Vista, I'd have a tough choice between that and Me as my most hated windoze version. I bought a brand new thinkpad that came with Vista, less than a week in I downgraded it to XP.

    • @lunarmodule6419
      @lunarmodule6419 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Ya that in itself was stupid. Really for the money. Let's just say it wasn't leaps like 3.x to 95.

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Vista was necessary actually. Windows 7 wouldn't have been as good as it was if Vista hadn't failed in the first place. They needed something to improve upon with 7 or they'd have built it from scratch and it would've been much worse than it is now. In fact Windows 7 is just a simplified Vista, without all the extra features that slowed down Vista so much.

  • @tackytrooper
    @tackytrooper ปีที่แล้ว +13

    I really miss the soothing music riffs the oldschool Windows OS's used to make on startup, install etc.

  • @onceuponatimeonearth
    @onceuponatimeonearth 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    12:27 oh my god the green head skin just unlocked some hidden memories

  • @Zentauri77
    @Zentauri77 4 ปีที่แล้ว +76

    I remember a joke back from the day.
    Microsoft combined all the features of it's Windows Versions, Windows CE, me and NT - and called the final product "Windows Cement".

    • @thermallance7947
      @thermallance7947 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      th-cam.com/video/jOh6Nh8w6f8/w-d-xo.html

    • @ratheonhudson3311
      @ratheonhudson3311 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Ahahaha, that's a perfect joke!

    • @LeBoomStudios
      @LeBoomStudios 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Here's another joke.
      Well, I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually not a joke but insider knowledge.
      xkcd.com/323/

  • @vsevkrawczeniuk8019
    @vsevkrawczeniuk8019 4 ปีที่แล้ว +118

    I loved the "Inside Your Computer" wallpaper too... But I just noticed... Why are there vacuum tubes???

    • @ThisIsmiXTV
      @ThisIsmiXTV 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      "It's a series of tubes.."

    • @Zizzily
      @Zizzily 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Cause they look a lot cooler than a bunch of transistors.

    • @someguystudios23
      @someguystudios23 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      They were assuming you were playing Wolfenstein 3D on the Eniac, lol

    •  4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Steam punk pc

    • @screwthenet
      @screwthenet 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Cause neeeerds :P

  • @recklessmage
    @recklessmage 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    My family had a 1996 Dell and I needed to upgrade very badly. I picked up a Compaq in 2000 and this OS came with it. I didn't notice how bad it was until a year and a half later when I upgraded to XP. Wow! What a difference.

  • @BossInvader1
    @BossInvader1 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    My first ever PC had Windows ME. It was an eMachine from Costco late 00' or early 01'. I also used it to make my first ever custom Myspace page and I played a ton of Sims and AIM chatrooms at 12-13 years old, I lived with my grandparents and they had AOL dialup before getting Qwest (now CenturyLink) DSL.

  • @ArcaneSurreal
    @ArcaneSurreal 4 ปีที่แล้ว +150

    I'm one of the freaks who never had an issue with Windows ME. I used it for a good 3 years; it never crashed, was rock solid, was quick - I even had a GeForce II 32MB 3D card and played the games of that era without so much as a hitch.
    I'm at a loss as to why so many others had issue with the platform.

    • @QJ89
      @QJ89 4 ปีที่แล้ว +32

      The two things I remember most vividly about ME:
      - Playing Trance music with the aqua Night Lights visualisation on WMP7, still one of my favourite programs to this day.
      - That dumb kid wrecking a PC with a plastic hammer.
      It surprised me to know that ME was so infamous.

    • @RW-cp8gp
      @RW-cp8gp 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Revenant Same here. Was bummed when I had to upgrade.

    • @gmitchellfamily
      @gmitchellfamily 4 ปีที่แล้ว +42

      Because you and Clint here loaded up ME in a sane way, with real drivers made for 9x.
      For you see, Me also advertised compatibility with a newer driver model (either the NT stack or something different, can't recall at the moment). Systems that shipped from OEMs frequently used both at the same time. The result was the flaming garbage dump that was most people's (mine included, hello 8 reboots a day) experience with this tragic OS.

    • @WintrBorn
      @WintrBorn 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I had no trouble, either. I wasn't building my PC at that point, but it was fine.

    • @teemuleppa3347
      @teemuleppa3347 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      i've been blessed for most of my time since 95...only problems i had was with some drives back in those days but never really had any issues with anything else

  • @viewtifuljoe99
    @viewtifuljoe99 4 ปีที่แล้ว +120

    My grandparents' computer ran ME so these sounds are triggering vivid memories right now. Always felt strange trying to navigate it compared to our 98 machine at home and it was a crap shoot at times getting games to work that I'd bring with for the summer as a kid.

    • @ddogg14
      @ddogg14 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      My grandparents' computer (an emachines model of some sort) is also the only computer I've ever used that ran ME. I would visit them in the summer and had the same compatibility-related troubles too! 98SE was so much better. We skipped Me at home and upgraded straight to XP a few years later, but I had plenty of experience with this quirky mess of an OS.

    • @viewtifuljoe99
      @viewtifuljoe99 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@ddogg14 At least ME had space cadet pinball for when you get too frustrated trying to troubleshoot compatibility issues!

    • @ddogg14
      @ddogg14 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@viewtifuljoe99 True! I think I played more space cadet pinball on Me than I did on XP!

  • @dantevortex
    @dantevortex 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    I remember standing in line to get a copy. I got the upgrade version to go from 98SE to ME.
    I still have it around somewhere. Nice hologram disc, and yes it wasn't that bad.
    I did perform horrible on stability. But this was more due to memory leaks.

  • @terraflops
    @terraflops 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

    i did not realize i had Windows ME on a laptop until now when you were changing the themes and i remember now of changing it to the blue & gold one. Also, i have the 3D pinball game on my Linux laptop (got it from Flathub) . Loving this channel so much.

  • @LazerLord10
    @LazerLord10 4 ปีที่แล้ว +745

    Why can't physical releases have CD's that cool looking!?

    • @boheyo
      @boheyo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +80

      They can if you're charging $200 for them.

    • @diskdem0n
      @diskdem0n 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@boheyo true

    • @dustinlawson5882
      @dustinlawson5882 3 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      @@boheyo or if the companies that price gouge the hell out of everything they sell cared about customer experience and not just milking us.

    • @BillehBobJoe
      @BillehBobJoe 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @Jay Greentree it also served to show a legitimate copy, sure, pirating windows is bad, but pirating windows and reselling it? thats much worse, no pirated copies ended up on holographic CDs

    • @Diwasho
      @Diwasho 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@looneyburgmusic But is the $70 copy as gorgeous as the $200 one?

  • @ltxr9973
    @ltxr9973 4 ปีที่แล้ว +44

    7:56 "This CD-ROM contains a newer version of Windows" It's worded as if your computer had found a mysterious treasure chest in a dungeon.

    • @adamgray1753
      @adamgray1753 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      The mysteriously treasure found in a mysterious dungeon somewhere would undoubtedly be more well received than just about anything from Microsoft these days.

    • @ltxr9973
      @ltxr9973 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@adamgray1753 Definitely. Windows 2000 was cool though.

    • @adamgray1753
      @adamgray1753 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Yeah, it was, @@ltxr9973. Super stable too.

  • @hlavco
    @hlavco 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Our first computer was Windows 95 and our second was Windows ME. I was too young to really know the difference, both seemed fine to me. But now, that Windows ME aesthetic brings back major nostalgia. My modern machine is built inside the case of that old ME PC, and the old motherboard is in storage. It still boots.

    • @me67galaxylife
      @me67galaxylife 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      What about the hard drive

    • @hlavco
      @hlavco 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@me67galaxylife I haven't tried in awhile, but last time I checked the hard drive was still kicking.

    • @me67galaxylife
      @me67galaxylife 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@hlavco that's pretty nice, perhaps one day you will put the thing back together ?

    • @hlavco
      @hlavco 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@me67galaxylife Maybe, if I end up with an extra case to use.

    • @me67galaxylife
      @me67galaxylife 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@hlavco that would be rad

  • @wiesshund-games
    @wiesshund-games ปีที่แล้ว +16

    I never really had any problems with Windows ME
    It seemed at the time mostly down to picking hardware that had good ME drivers, the win2k UI wasnt bad

    • @thepcuser5469
      @thepcuser5469 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      It’s the same story with vista, that’s why at this point i say windows vista is good and even nostalgic to some extent, I remember running windows vista RTM on XP hardware and it wasn’t that good, when the drivers for vista were available and SP2 came out it was much better

    • @dismalfist
      @dismalfist 9 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Same here as it goes, no major issues with it back in the day. I think we were the only two! 😄

  • @blahorgaslisk7763
    @blahorgaslisk7763 4 ปีที่แล้ว +96

    I remember a friend who was so happy he was running the latest and greatest in operating systems, Windows ME...
    When asked about the stability he happily told us ME was the best he had ever used. A few minutes later he told us how he did a clean install of the OS every week to keep it trim...
    This had me shaking my head as I installed Win95 when I built my computer, upgraded to Win98 when that was released, and then once more to Win 98 SE. And never had I done a clean install over all this time. Sure I was working with support and was quite well versed in the care and feeding of these OS, but it wasn't that hard to keep the system in shape.

    • @KuraIthys
      @KuraIthys 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      Every week is a bit much.
      I averaged about 1 reinstall every 2 years for Windows 95 and 98, but I messed around with my computer a LOT.
      (at some point I was dual-booting NT4.0 with Windows 95)
      Windows XP I think I've reinstalled about 3 times in 15 years and it's almost always been tied to issues after transferring to a new hard drive.
      Windows 7 and up I can't say I've ever done a reinstall of (though I did once test it on a laptop I own then uninstall it and put windows XP back on. Nothing wrong with it, but I had gotten that license for my desktop which wasn't ready yet.), and I'm still using a computer from 2010 that runs a windows 7->10 upgrade.
      Though, that has given me a lot of grief over the years and right now windows update has been broken, and a dozen or so attempts hasn't been able to fix it, so... Might be time... (but I'm building a new PC soon anyway, so... Eh. I'll deal with it later.)

    • @bledlbledlbledl
      @bledlbledlbledl 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      meanwhile, one of the computers I use at work has XP on it, and it gets rebooted maybe 3 times a year; other than that it's either on or hibernating... well, usually it's hibernating because I use a Linux machine most of the time; XP only when I need to use industrial software that requires windows

    • @bledlbledlbledl
      @bledlbledlbledl 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Bewefau Back when I used to use win98, I had a DOS utility that could make a compressed backup image of the c:\ partition. If win98 were to crash, or get eaten by a virus, or if I just totally broke it doing silly experiments (none of which happened often) I could reboot to DOS, type one command, and come back 2 minutes later to a fully-restored system.

    • @blahorgaslisk7763
      @blahorgaslisk7763 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@KuraIthys I remember one time that I had managed to get a virus on my machine, and it turned out that there were very little information on how to remove it. The automated tools hadn't been updated yet and it kept reinfecting the machine with some kind of encrypted payload that looked different every time. After discovering that this virus it wasn't trivial to remove I toyed with the idea of reinstalling the machine, only to come to the conclusion that after more than five years of use the OS was so modified and tweaked that it would take a very long time to get it back to the functionality it currently had. So I grit my teeth and dug a bit deeper until I was able to identify, defuse and finally rip all it's components out of the system. I think it took me about 6 hours total, but by then I had a very good idea of how it worked. It might have been quicker to reinstall the OS, but then it would take something like six months or more before I'd have it up to speed again...

  • @manley1979
    @manley1979 3 ปีที่แล้ว +297

    We used to call it Windows ME the "Mistake Edition" lol (started my career in tech in 1999 doing Y2K support for Dell lol)

  • @kingjay239
    @kingjay239 2 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    This brings back so many great and bad memories lol. I remember when I was like 9-10 years old my dad bought me my first PC, it was a Gateway computer it had an Intel Celeron and ran Windows ME. Oh man it was great when it was working. It was around $1,200. I remember a year after owning it, my modem got fried so I couldn't connect to the internet. I remember I fixed it myself. We went to walmart and bought a new modem, I opened up the computer and removed the old modem and installed a new one myself lol. That Beck song gives me PTSD lol. Btw I love your laugh/giggle.

  • @EpicATrain
    @EpicATrain ปีที่แล้ว +3

    19:00 Dang you, now I got that stuck in my head.

  • @freepepsicola
    @freepepsicola 4 ปีที่แล้ว +61

    For an accurate Windows ME experience, you need to run it on a slow, poorly designed and set up OEM machine from one of the big box stores of the time. Much more BSoD fun!

    • @OzzFan1000
      @OzzFan1000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      The one and only machine (which I was given years after it's shelf-life) that I used ME on was a Gateway 2000 that had a Pentium III 800MHz CPU with passive cooling and no fans in the case. It froze up all the time. No wonder people hated ME; the hardware was crap and the OS got the blame.

    • @jongarzamx
      @jongarzamx 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      ​@@OzzFan1000 Maybe hardware was crap, but Win 98 and 2000 could handle it. Even Microsoft confessed the release was rushed and not properly tested, I remember rumors about how it was adapted from a very early prototype of Win XP that wasn't even close to consumer standards.

    • @OzzFan1000
      @OzzFan1000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@jongarzamx , I would still think that comes down to drivers. Windows 98 drivers needed to be re-written to a new standard and removing all support for real-mode access, which many manufacturers didn't bother to do. I'd wager that given a properly configured system, Win98, ME, and 2k would run fine side-by-side.

    • @skyem123
      @skyem123 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@OzzFan1000 That does seem to be what this video shows...

    • @OzzFan1000
      @OzzFan1000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@ah5836 sounds like a precursor to what we have now. An application crashes and crash reports are sent to the vendor to be made aware of the problem and to develop a potential fix if needed. Sounds like Me's attempt was very much "version 1.0" Was Me flawed? I never said it wasn't. I just think it works better than most people give it credit for, as with Vista.

  • @metfan4l
    @metfan4l 4 ปีที่แล้ว +143

    26:23 Holy crap, that motocross madness clip took me back. I spent entirely too much time back then driving up to the level border and catapulting my bike back. Good times.

    • @milklordnomadic
      @milklordnomadic 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Same. On Windows ME at that hahaha

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I laughed when I read this actually. Same happens to me when I play MX vs ATV on PS3. Hit the border and I go flying across the map.

    • @justinofpreece
      @justinofpreece 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      The best part of the operating system! Spent so many hours playing it. I wish there was a copy out there of the game I could get. Worst part of the OS was that I couldnt install iTunes when I got my new iPod in mid 2005, had to borrow a friends laptop which had XP and not update my iPod for a year

    • @jackcaver79
      @jackcaver79 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Same here, although I think I only ever played the sequel, Motocross Madness 2. My brother and me played it to death, good times.

    • @adam1984pl
      @adam1984pl 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I forget this one even existed,i haven okayed that since like 1999.

  • @eastender74
    @eastender74 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Watching that CRT bloom initial images is something you won’t see on any LED. I’d love to have a modern monitor be able to imitate that. Even on my smartphone that would be even way cooler! 😎

  • @ehkirkio
    @ehkirkio 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    My first ever computer had ME pre-installed, and at the time it felt incredible because I'd never had a PC of my own and had used only ever used 3.1/95/98 at school. But yeah, then XP was a thing and poor ME was long gone

  • @GunGryphon
    @GunGryphon 4 ปีที่แล้ว +138

    16:05 That point when you realize that "Billy" is probably graduated from college by now.

    • @AlfaGiuliaQV
      @AlfaGiuliaQV 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Billy should be around 26 y/o by now...

    • @jameswalker199
      @jameswalker199 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      From uni with a computer science degree, probably. Breaking things and finding out what broke was how I learned.

  • @thomaseboland8701
    @thomaseboland8701 4 ปีที่แล้ว +155

    26:27 I think Clint hit the nail on the head when he was talking about how insanely crappy computers and operating systems were in this timeframe.
    I was an IT manager and we were reimaging Windows 9x / ME computers every six months because of crap. The same was true with Mac OS9. The '90s were really weird this way. It was '80's technology remnants being used well past their "sell-by" dates. Windows 2000 / XP / OSX were light-years better than their predecessors.
    Vintage gamers (like Clint and his fans) are the ONLY ones who have any love at all for this computer junk. For me, it's nice to see it framed in a cute and nostalgic way. All I remember was lots of work for no good reason. . I have no desire to relive it on an ongoing basis.
    I have loaded up Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, Win 95, Win98, Win2000 on VM's. The difference between 2K and everything else is shocking.
    If I were to build up old hardware, it would be DOS 6.22 and WordPerfect only, to create an amazing distraction-free typing system. There is nothing like real hardware and a Model F running DOS only. It's like typing from your brain to the screen with nothing in between.

    • @runninggames771
      @runninggames771 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      ok boomer

    • @the81kid
      @the81kid 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      As far as I know, Windows is still using 1980s code and architecture. They paint over the creaking carcass with ever newer and shinier features that nobody ever asked for (transparent applications everyone!). And Win 98 was pretty good, was it not?

    • @cheaterman49
      @cheaterman49 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Yeaaah. Nostalgically resolving IRQ conflicts on soundcards... No, thank you.

    • @Cooe.
      @Cooe. 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@camthesaxman3387 Claiming Amiga OS was more advanced & capable than Windows 95/98 is absolutely fucking ridiculous.... Your blind Amiga-fanboyness is blatantly apparent lol. Amiga fans and moderately delusional obsessiveness go hand & hand lol.

    • @cheaterman49
      @cheaterman49 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@the81kid XP was a blend of NT and 9x, Vista was a rushed release of what Seven would be but AFAIK very much a rewrite to try and get rid of old crud. Permissions closer to UNIX and the likes. 8 even rewrote the UI system, and we all know how it went ; but from all that, I'd say Win10 probably has less legacy code than you'd expect!

  • @BEEFTEEF4
    @BEEFTEEF4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Great vid. I also had a Compaq Presario 5000 US. The 750MHz AMD CPU it had at the time was quite nice!

  • @oktosite_
    @oktosite_ 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Damn, now I kind of want to see a showcase of the installation discs for different Windows versions. I remember some other colorful holographic logos.

  • @kens32052
    @kens32052 4 ปีที่แล้ว +213

    I remember the joke that went around back then. Windows "CEMENT" CE+ME+NT. lol

    • @kymbusby
      @kymbusby 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      i.imgur.com/zh4F55R.png

    • @astr0xarthur49
      @astr0xarthur49 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Kym Busby ?

    • @Marckillius
      @Marckillius 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@kymbusby Windows Cement - Only for end-users. Quite fitting actually...

    • @stephenhornickiii
      @stephenhornickiii 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      "Hard as a rock, dumb as a brick."

    • @RWBHere
      @RWBHere 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      And it ran on an Intel Celery Processor....

  • @firatozcan4051
    @firatozcan4051 4 ปีที่แล้ว +150

    Are we all going to ignore the legitimately scary little horror movie he did there using movie maker?

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      Actually, he uploaded that masterpiece to LGR Blerbs. Just 2 minutes of quality filmmaking 😃

    • @RicoJazz
      @RicoJazz 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      To be fair, that video made itself lol

    • @JonahBj
      @JonahBj 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      The child and the ominous music, artistic gold.

    • @DakinRinone
      @DakinRinone 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      ... how in the fuck was that "scary"?

    • @btizef2008
      @btizef2008 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Imagine somehow watching that video clip before seeing the main video first like I did 🤣

  • @doncsicso81
    @doncsicso81 2 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Maybe it's only me, but I had this after 95 and never really had issues with it... and I had it for 2 years before upgrading to XP.... ah the memories 😢 I miss those days....

  • @spartansfan1026
    @spartansfan1026 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    My family's very first computer was a Gateway running Windows ME. I have really fond memories of it, probably in part because I was far too young at 5 to be able to tell if there was anything problematic about it.

  • @stevencurtis7157
    @stevencurtis7157 2 ปีที่แล้ว +348

    My dad had a computer that came with Windows Me. It accumulated "OS rot" faster than any computer I've ever used. It didn't really seem to cope well with long term use and many programs being installed and removed.

    • @sjogosPT
      @sjogosPT ปีที่แล้ว +22

      I had same experience back in the day. Windows me dont like to be messed arround much. 98SE seems more resilient.

    • @gex581990
      @gex581990 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      Yep after we had to reinstall ME 3 times in a month we just ended up using Windows 2000 till XP’s first service pack came out

    • @MannyBrum
      @MannyBrum ปีที่แล้ว +3

      By OS rot you mean you never defragmented your hard drive? Because no hard drive keeps its performance after many installations and uninstallations without defragging.

    • @stevencurtis7157
      @stevencurtis7157 ปีที่แล้ว +41

      @@MannyBrum No, I do not mean that. ME festered with a deeper evil than mere fragmentation.

    • @gordonwelcher9598
      @gordonwelcher9598 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      When I ran several programs at once I would get a error about insufficient GDI resources.
      I liked the new look but I had to reinstall once a month.

  • @muticere
    @muticere 4 ปีที่แล้ว +90

    LGR: I'll just do the in-place upgrade
    Every Helpdesk worker watching: RIP

    • @suprastevio2264
      @suprastevio2264 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Nooooo kidding, this holds so much truth lol

    • @crunkybrewster
      @crunkybrewster 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I thought the same thing immediately not being an IT guy here. He got lucky from that install

    • @alexanderdemontfort3022
      @alexanderdemontfort3022 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      and then Microsoft went and made in-place upgrade the preferred upgrade path for Windows 10 and everyone, long accustomed to the wipe and load still did wipe and load.

    • @muticere
      @muticere 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I'm sitting watching this having forgotten that I already watched it until I scrolled down and saw my comment lol. Yeah, at the time I made this comment, we were in the process of upgrading all of our company computers to Windows 10 from Windows 7, so when LGR mentioned doing the "in place" upgrade it caused a stir in my poor heart. Glad that's not my job anymore.

  • @MarianRenta
    @MarianRenta 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    When ME came out, all we cared about was getting on AOL and going to our favorite websites to read up on our favorite bands! The chatrooms were where 90s teens like me lived! True, we dreaded the damn blue screens and crawling speeds, and atrocious bug errors, but this era was such a cultural event that we embraced the crappiness. I couldn’t stand how long it took to run a clean install (1+ hour) and how a “clean install” was the only damn solution to every single problem with this nightmare of an OS. Many of us were still using windows 95/98 well after Me came out 😅 It was all we needed to burn our CDs with Roxio, listen to Windows Media Player, and get on AIM 🥰🥰🥰

  • @stevehofer3482
    @stevehofer3482 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I bought a Compaq Presario quite similar to yours, shipped with Windows ME, and it was a nice home computer. It was much more capable thsn the more expensive second generation iMacs with which it competed. 700mhz Celeron with MMX. It had a dvd-rom drive snd acD burner, it had an ESS1 sound chip with ASIO driver. It ran everything well except Magix Music Studio.

  • @raf9826
    @raf9826 3 ปีที่แล้ว +242

    5:57 don't worry dude, no one's gonna steal your windows me key xD

    • @woswasdenni1914
      @woswasdenni1914 3 ปีที่แล้ว +56

      yea convince him, so i can fianlly procceed with the install

    • @sanantohomie
      @sanantohomie 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      CHINA NO STEAL

    • @MultiWirth
      @MultiWirth 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      You can get a complete boot cd image containing a dos menu where you can choose between windows me setup, a working cd key and a partition manager.
      The all in one iso which you can boot on your old pc and just install it.
      I don´t exactly know where i found this but i guess google will find it.
      The same exists for 98 se and 95 c.
      So the OS is more or less free anyways now.

    • @garyr7027
      @garyr7027 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Lol, nope they sure won't.

    • @TheTurnipKing
      @TheTurnipKing 3 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      It's more a protective measure to ensure the unwary don't install it by accident

  • @JarrodCoombes
    @JarrodCoombes 4 ปีที่แล้ว +49

    There two major issues with Windows ME that got it the reputation it had. The first was it absolutely sucked at memory manaagement, there was a major bug in the kernel which meant it never freed up RAM when a program was closed, which ultimately lead a ton of out of memory errors and straight up crashes. Try it on that machine, bring up the free RAM percentage, then just open and close applications and watch how the number slowly creeps up to 100%, especially if you leave it on for a few days.
    The second issue was some off compatibility issues with AMD CPUs. This would cause the machine to run significantly slower on AMD CPUs that performed about the same as Intel on Win98 and 2k. For me personally the onboard network card in ME ran into many issues with sustained transfers. My broadband connection was slower than dialup on ME, but just fine with 98 and 2k installed.
    Other than that, it was a minor step upgrade from 98SE, and was ok. People just expected it to be more of a step up from 98SE, after all NT4 to 2k was a huge step up.
    I am also reasonably sure that is was just a stop gap between 98SE and XP, so MS never really put much effort into improving it.

    • @Liggliluff
      @Liggliluff 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Thank you for your detailed description. That surely is a huge issue. People seem to overreact and bandwagon as usually and never state what the actual issue is.

    • @MrDuncl
      @MrDuncl 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      I ran ME for quite a while. The main thing I remember was continual problems with trying to run two printers (a B&W laserprinter and a colour inkjet). Print on one and there was a very good chance the other one would stop working and would need reinstalling. Once I swapped to Windows XP that never happened again.
      Bizarrely the Windows 10 WiFi driver on my, still a current model, HP printer stopped working recently and a days research and fiddling hasn't fixed it. In that respect at least with ME a quick driver reinstall would get my printer going again.

    • @stoves3
      @stoves3 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      RAM memory management

    • @tc-todoschorros2056
      @tc-todoschorros2056 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      And general protection faults.
      Oh man, so many BSODs.
      "KERNEL386.EXE caused an error in 00AC:18CD" or a similar error that would mean we had to restart the machine.
      With all honesty, nobody in my family knew much about computers back then, I was a child and my mom didn't know much, and my father was completely clueless, much more than we were. (With the years I have learned a lot, my mom at least knows her way around 95% of the time, and even my dad learned something, although he still doesn't know much).
      With the years I have realized, too, that we were sold a lemon, a machine that barely could run ME. I remember it was a K6 with 64 MB of RAM and it would crash or have at least one error almost every day.
      So no wonder why I am part of the legion of people who hate Windows ME. Some features were cool though, like the skins on WMP and the themes it had, but most of the hate is warranted and deserved, I think. Apparently ME was more unstable than its predecessor Windows 98 so maybe that made it even more hated amongst people.
      A lot of people too, bought a PC because in the late 90's and early 2000's, everyone and their mother were doing it, without having much knowledge or thinking very much about what they were getting into.
      So many people got potato PCs that were coupled with mismatching drivers (like my dad, I suspect), or just were too weak to run Win ME properly, thus generating the perfect storm of epic proportions that ensued.
      People may have potato PCs now, but at least they won't crash horribly, complete with general protection errors and kernel panics. The late 90's to early 2000's were indeed a wild west, like Clint pointed out.

  • @LittleDancerByGrace
    @LittleDancerByGrace 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

    WOW I forgot about that startup music! Windows Me was my first-ever computer experience (my grandma bought a PC with Me pre-installed, mostly because it was trendy). I LOVED Spider Solitaire and Pinball and spent many happy hours playing Hasbro Yahtzee and Milton Bradley Board Games on it.
    I was brought up with a sort of culture of fear around computers. Nobody in my family even used one at work, let alone at home, and saw them as big scary (and above all Very Expensive) boxes just waiting to be permanently broken by some accidental keystroke. This was further borne out by the fact that my grandma's aforementioned PC started malfunctioning within two years of purchase (in retrospect I think it may have been a monitor issue but none of us had the knowledge to figure that out at the time).
    For that reason, I never delved into cool things like Windows Media Player or Windows Movie Maker. I was so afraid of breaking it that I never really USED it. Thanks for showing me what I missed.

  • @1chiTheKiller
    @1chiTheKiller 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    When I was a little kid we moved and my aunt and uncle had a Windows 95 system, but we never had a PC at my house until years later. Our first system had Windows ME on it. I don't remember if it sucked or not, but I do remember loving finally having a family computer. I could enjoy those cool magazine demo discs finally. Our next system used Windows XP on it, and I liked that one quite a bit. That was our last family computer, as we each got our own laptops and so on afterwards.

  • @Flextro
    @Flextro 4 ปีที่แล้ว +92

    One major benefit for me: ME handle USB thumb drive out-of-box

    • @silkwesir1444
      @silkwesir1444 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      didn't 98SE do that too?

    • @Jutah82
      @Jutah82 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@silkwesir1444 it needed a driver.

    • @Flextro
      @Flextro 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@silkwesir1444 It's work with USB pretty well, but for mass storage it needs 3'rd party driver. Also frequently this driver contain "Safe eject" utility

    • @joesshows6793
      @joesshows6793 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      ALL LIES!!!!

    • @silkwesir1444
      @silkwesir1444 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      thanks for the replies. I wouldn't have known. The time I got into using USB thumb-drives I was already on Windows XP.
      Before that, it was CD-Rs and occasionally still floppies.

  • @TwistZero
    @TwistZero 4 ปีที่แล้ว +42

    4:43 "Hmm, I don't have one of those watches here, but I do have..."
    *Pulls out knife*

  • @user-bw1jm2rl9s
    @user-bw1jm2rl9s 8 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I had a great experience with ME! My family always bought old or "bad" OS: we had 3.1/Packard Bell Navigator, ME in 2000 and Vista in 2009!
    I was 9 and our Compaq came bundled with a ton of great games, all of which worked well even with my total PC inexperience: Need for Speed III, High Stakes and Porsche Unleashed, Sim City 3000 Unlimited, NBA Live 2000, Triple Play 2001 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001. I had a BLAST with my cheap game pad and wish we still had that goofy clear purple Y2K PC that matched my Game Boy Color and Funtastic N64!!
    Never had any issues with bloat, crashes, system restore, etc. in the two years before we upgraded to XP (just because it was free). My parents didn't use the PC at all, we didn't have home internet until XP, and I didn't need DOS- so nothing to cause issues. Nostalgia helps :)

  • @raywood8187
    @raywood8187 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I remember it being buggy, just too long ago to remember what the details were. I looked at it as just a filler, since we expected XP to be out by 2000 and it was late. This version really could have been skipped, XP was way better. But all thee years later, what does XP even stand for? I never understood why MS had such inconsistent version numbers. What happened to Windows 9? Good luck finding the answers to these burning questions!
    I'm in no hurry to go to Windows 11, if they're going to make us use a MS account to sign into the personal computer that I own and then want to sync my files to their cloud or whatever.

    • @mardus_ee
      @mardus_ee ปีที่แล้ว

      "Windows 9" (after Windows 8, I suppose) must have been skipped for some practical programming reasons, probably to do with the naming of the previous Windows versions that started with the number nine, such as 95, 98, and 98SE.
      There may have been marketing reasons to prevent confusion with Apple Mac OS 9 (System 9) and Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Further, Mac OS X ("X" for "10") had been out for quite a bit, and maybe Microsoft sought to keep up with that.

  • @seoulpurpose
    @seoulpurpose 4 ปีที่แล้ว +36

    "Windows ME, it just works!" -LGR
    That'll look great as a pull quote on the boxed re-release

  • @LordSandwichII
    @LordSandwichII 3 ปีที่แล้ว +108

    System restore was really thorough. It used to restore everything...
    ...including all your malware!

    • @Ordlnary_Gamer
      @Ordlnary_Gamer 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      and

    • @sztywny83
      @sztywny83 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      It means that this feature was working properly. ME was the first Windows with it.

  • @GeomancerHT
    @GeomancerHT 8 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I had totally forgotten about restore points, what a pain, they never worked as advertised and it was better to leave that turned off.

  • @necrotic256
    @necrotic256 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I remember updating my win98 installation to ME one day. While it's not really been an upgrade for me, it was probably the first time i ever did something "serious" by myself with a PC. Soon after, i did some overclocking, then PC building and had some paying work fixing office computers when i finished highschool. Now i just build PCs once every few years to play some games once in a while

  • @lightningfarronxp8899
    @lightningfarronxp8899 4 ปีที่แล้ว +103

    back when I was in high school and having internet in your house wasn't exactly common, I had a friend who got a free
    computer from a church charity and it had a windows me on it. every day after school a bunch of us would gather at his house
    and watch funny videos on youtube when it first came out. we also played a lot of flash games, spent time on myspace, downloaded
    music off limewire and looked at some other things that teenagers look at if you know what I mean lol.
    even if its not perfect, windows me will always hold a special place in my heart.

    • @DarkWiNKenzo
      @DarkWiNKenzo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      things that i hated the most about the damn OS was the fact that 5 out of the 10 tries that i would do to save a word document in high school, it almost always crashed XD

    • @boheyo
      @boheyo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Where are you from that internet still wasn't common by the time TH-cam came around?

    • @Chad_Thundercock
      @Chad_Thundercock 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Porn. He's referring to porn.
      But after all, that's what the internet is for.

    • @justmijosh
      @justmijosh 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Dudeeeeeee ~ I had a really cool grandma growing up who noticed “my love of the computers” and bought me a computer from a church yard sale and it had me on it too!!

    • @gravitowl
      @gravitowl 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @Knobcore i cant imagine that people didnt had internet in 2005!

  • @baconchickenforty-two9208
    @baconchickenforty-two9208 3 ปีที่แล้ว +81

    all those media player skins are mind-blowingly cool

  • @chrismofer
    @chrismofer 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    10:43 love how the splash screen widens on the CRT slightly lol

  • @SaarN1337
    @SaarN1337 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    WinMe used to give me a shit ton of BSODs when I installed it, gee.
    But I remember having issues with Win98SE as well, opening my computer would freeze for some reason so I'd have to access without using my computer to do so.
    I also forgot about 'Beautiful Way', I remember having a sample of No Doubt - Don't speak as well, no idea from where exactly it came. I got reminded of it because of the Beck sample you showed, and not because of ME specifically.
    Good times