Windows Me

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Windows Me
(Part of the Microsoft Windows family)
Screenshot
A typical Windows Me desktop.
Developer
Microsoft
Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsme
Release information
Current version:	4.90.3000 (September 14, 2000) info
Source model:	Closed source
License:	Microsoft EULA
Kernel type:	Monolithic kernel
Support status
Unsupported as of July 11, 2006[1]

Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me, is a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft.^[2] It was originally codenamed Millennium.

Contents 1 Overview 2 New and updated features 3 Criticisms 4 Relation to other Windows releases 5 System requirements 6 Last DOS based Windows 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Overview

A successor to Windows 95 and Windows 98, Windows Me was marketed as a "Home Edition" when compared to Windows 2000 which had been released seven months earlier. It provided Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows Media Player 7, and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy for home users. Microsoft also updated the graphical user interface in Windows Me with some of the features that were first introduced in Windows 2000.

Unlike the "Home" edition of Windows XP which would replace Windows Me a year later, Windows Me is not built on the Windows NT architecture of Microsoft's professional operating system at the time. Windows Me is an MS-DOS (Windows 9x) based version like its predecessors but with access to real mode MS-DOS restricted for faster system boot time. This was one of the most publicized changes in Windows Me because applications that needed real mode DOS to run (such as older disk utilities) would not run under the Windows Me operating system.

Compared with other releases, Windows Me had a short shelf-life; it was soon replaced by Windows XP, which was launched on October 25, 2001.

In 2006, PCWorld declared Windows Me the fourth "Worst Tech Product of All Time" (after AOL, RealPlayer, and Syncronys SoftRAM) because of various technical issues.^[3]

[edit] New and updated features

System Restore: Windows Me introduced the "System Restore" logging and reversion system, which was meant to simplify troubleshooting and solving problems. It was intended to work as a "safety net" so that if the installation of an application or a driver adversely affected the system, the user could undo the install and return the system to a previously-working state. It did this by monitoring changes to Windows system files and the registry (System Restore is not a backup program). System Restore could slow the computer's performance and compromise its stability if it chose to checkpoint the system while a user was using it, and since its method of keeping track of changes was fairly simplistic, it sometimes ended up restoring a virus which the user had previously removed.

New TCP/IP Stack: Windows Me included the Windows 2000 networking stack and architecture ^[4] which was known to be more reliable, full-featured, stable and offered better performance. Support for networking over FireWire, wireless infrared and a new Home Networking wizard was also included.

Universal Plug and Play: Windows Me was Microsoft's first operating system to introduce support for Universal Plug and Play, often shortened to UPnP.

Windows Image Acquisition: Windows Me also introduced the Windows Image Acquisition API for a standardized and officially supported method of allowing Windows applications to transparently and more easily communicate with image acquisition devices, such as digital cameras and scanners. Before Windows Me and the introduction of WIA, non-standard third party solutions were often common here, leading to incompatibility problems.

Automatic Updates: The Automatic Updates utility automatically downloads and installs critical updates from the Windows Update Web site with little user interaction. It is set up to check Windows Update once every 24 hours by default. Users can choose to download which update that they want, although high-priority updates must be downloaded and installed.

System File Protection: First introduced with Windows 2000 (as Windows File Protection), and expanding on the capabilities introduced with System File Checker in Windows 98, System File Protection aimed to protect system files from modification and corruption silently and automatically. When the file protection was in effect, replacing a system file that had no file lock preventing it to be overwritten caused Windows to immediately and silently restore the original copy. The original would then be taken from a hard drive backup folder or from the Windows Me installation CD if none were found on the default locations searched by Windows. If no such CD would be in the drive, a dialog box would alert the user about the problem and request that the CD be inserted. The same procedures took place if a system file was deleted instead of replaced.

Compressed Folders: Windows Me includes a folder encryption and compression utility called Compressed Folders, which also was integrated into the Plus! pack for Windows 98. With this feature, a user can create and access Zip files. The user can also restrict access to files with a password using compressed folders. This utility is not installed by default, but can be installed manually using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.

Image Preview: In Windows Me, images can be viewed by using the Image Preview utility. This feature makes it possible to rotate a image, print or zoom in/out a image. Image Preview supports images with bmp, .dib, .emf, .gif, .jpeg, .png, .tif and .wmf file name extensions.

Games: Windows Me offers several new games, including Internet Backgammon, Internet Checkers, Internet Hearts, Internet Reversi, Internet Spades and Spider Solitaire. Some of them have been incorporated into Windows XP.

On-Screen Keyboard: Originally introduced with Windows 2000, a program called On-screen Keyboard has been added, which makes it possible to input characters by using the mouse instead of the keyboard. This feature is useful for computers that use a pen as the primary pointing device.

System Configuration Utility has been updated with three new tabs called "Static VxDs", "Environment" and "International". The Static VxDs tab allows the user to enable or disable static virtual device drivers to be loaded at startup, the Environment tab allows the user to enable or disable a environment variable, and the last one allows the user to change language settings.

System Monitor has been updated with a Dial-Up Adapter section. Users can now monitor items such as Connection Speeds, Bytes Received or Transmitted / Second.

A new Help and Support program has also been added, replacing Windows Help in Windows 2000 and 98. The Help and Support Center is HTML-based, and takes advantage of a technology called Support Automation Framework (SAF).

Windows File Protection is an entirely different technology from System Restore. System Restore maintains a broad set of changed files including added applications and user configuration data stored repeatedly at specific points in time restored by the user. Windows File Protection only protects operating system files with no user input.

Windows File Protection uses version 2.5 of the Microsoft Data Access Components technology.

[edit] Criticisms

Microsoft's removal of non-plug-and-play drivers on the Windows Me installation CD led to further confusion when many older modems, sound cards and network cards appeared not to be supported as they were after a Windows 98 installation.^[5] In many cases, this could be remedied by manually installing the proper driver(s). However, due to the aforementioned lack of real mode support, hardware having only real-mode drivers was incompatible with Windows Me.

Due to Windows Me's perceived problems installing, running, and shutting down, Dan Tynan called it 'Mistake Edition' in the PC World 'Top 25 Worst Tech Products'. ^[3] Microsoft itself called it "the late, unlamented Windows ME" in its book Microsoft Vista, Inside Out^[6].

Like Windows 98 and Windows XP Home, and unlike Windows 2000, Windows Me does not have a back up utility installed by default, but it is available in the /VALUEADD folder on the Windows Me CD.

[edit] Relation to other Windows releases

Windows Me was complemented by Windows NT-based Windows 2000, which was aimed at professional users. Both operating systems were succeeded by Windows XP with their features combined. Along with Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE, Microsoft discontinued support for Windows Me on July 11, 2006. Microsoft now no longer provides any phone support or security updates for these products because Microsoft considers them outdated.^[7]

At the time of its release, many third-party applications written for earlier editions of Microsoft Windows, especially older games, ran under Windows Me but not under Windows 2000. This fact has become less relevant with the sharp decline in popularity of Windows Me after the release of Windows XP, which features a compatibility mode which allows many of these older applications to run.

[edit] System requirements

Minimum system requirements of Windows Millennium Edition are a 150 MHz Pentium or compatible processor, 320 megabytes of free hard drive space and at least 32 megabytes of RAM.^[8] Recommended system requirements are a Pentium II 300 MHz with at least 96 megabytes of RAM. However, all of the Windows 9x Setup applications have an undocumented "/nm" switch which tells setup to ignore CPU requirements.

[edit] Last DOS based Windows

Windows Me is the last version of a DOS-based Windows OS. It is also the last version of Windows that lacks Windows Product Activation.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Microsoft's Windows Me webpage
• GUIdebook: Windows Me Gallery - A website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces
• HPC:Factor Windows Millennium Edition Patches & Updates Guide