[SPLIT] ME vs 98

Everyone will

usually have a different opinion.

It all depends on what you want.

ME has many more features than 98 but is

less stable.

What will the computer be used for?

Remember that fewer and fewer things will be compatible with

older versions of Windows, that's also a factor.

The hardware is also a factor.

Any info you give will better

enable me to help you.

I use 98 all the way up to XP pro on different computers on my home network.

Probably way too late.....

I have ME and have been told by at least two computer 'experts' that it is much better than Windows 98.

The only problem I ever had was that I bought the system extremely cheap.....unknown to me, without enough memory to accomodate ME. Now that I have HEAPS of memory, my computer is pretty much on 'rocket' scale.

I wasn't able to run ME successfully until I installed a 128 MB Ram card.
188 MB Ram seems to handle it fine but Explorer is still a bit finicky.

That's odd LW.....I've had no problems with IE.

I had WinME on my machine and it absolutely HATED IE v6. I was crashing 5 or 6 times a day and had to reboot constantly. I fanally gave up and reformatted the system with Win2000 and I've had zero problems since then.

I've never used Win98 myself but I'm not a fan of WinME at all.

I reinstalled 6.0 four times and it's now quieted down -- it will still crash every one in awhile where I've had no problem with Exlorer although I seldom use it. WindowsME is more unstable than any other Microsoft OS. I'm going XP sometime next year (I'm sure Microsoft will have an upgrade to that OS by that time).

A lot of games won't run on ME - i've got friends who had to go back to 98 for that reason.

I've got 98, it's very stable and does everything i can imagine wanting. I'm not doing programming or anything serious like that. I'll stick with it until I don't have a choice but to migrate up. Hopefully, something equally stable will be developed by then.

I have used every Windows that has ever been released and the only one that I liked is XP.

XP has not ever crashed once for me and I do things to puters that make them feel like crashing.

The problem with XP is that many hardware manufacturers don't release drivers for it.

So, on one of my puters XP means that:

I can't use the DVD player.

I can't use my old scanner (I put it on a PC running 98 now).

My graphics card doesn't have Open GL support (this means no Quake or any game that runs on that engine).

But it's worth it. With all other versions I had the "dreaded blue screen of death" at least twice a day. I have never once had that with XP. I won't go into the how or why but XP is an outstanding OS whose only drawback is that support for some old hardware is nonexistant. I don't mind not being able to use half of the hardware on my puter though. The stability is worth it.

Try another DVD player -- there's lots of free ones on the internet. The latest DVD's that include software like InterActual Player are compatible with XP while the olders ones aren't. This happens virtually every time a new OS appears so my SONY player worked fine with ME but the InterActual older players would not. That installed again for "Fellowship of the Ring" and it works fine now. I don't need two players but there are some Internet features on InterActual that my player doesn't have. BTW, the new extended version of FOTR is due out on the 12th! The best price for it on pre-order is wallmart.com at $25.88. It's 4 DVD's!

I'm going to have to buy new puters anyway when I move to the states so I'll have a better setup then.

Thank you all for the advice - Win XP has been chosen and damn my Expense!!