# POLL : The worse Microsoft OS ever made....



## Drastik

Dont just says 95 because its the oldest, whats is your experience with the os's? good or bad?


I have to go with M.E because it was a cheap, rushed, over hyped, os which only perpose was to bring in sales because of its name, since it came out just before the new millenium.


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## Byteman

DOS.  It's the mistake that bill built unstable shells on top of, (Win95/98/me) and has taken him years to completely get out of production, and producing nos DOS os's (WinNT/2k/XP).


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## atomic

infact 95 isnt the oldest windows operating system...windows 1.0 released in 1985 was


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## Drastik

You know what i mean... os's that look like todays os's...

Get with the times, smart asses lol


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## Drastik

Byteman said:
			
		

> DOS.  It's the mistake that bill built unstable shells on top of, (Win95/98/me) and has taken him years to completely get out of production, and producing nos DOS os's (WinNT/2k/XP).



Whats the difference between a os with or without dos as its building blocks?


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## Drastik

LOL

Sempron2800 voted xp as the worst os ever mad. Are you mad? lol


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## atomic

Drastik said:
			
		

> You know what i mean... os's that look like todays os's...



Define what looks like todays?


  

WINDOWS 1.0


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## Drastik

atomic said:
			
		

> Define what looks like todays?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WINDOWS 1.0



95-xp all have the same sort of look, a desktop and a taskbar. 1.0 doesnt have that since its just a series of windows.


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## Byteman

tested uptimes for win9x vs. NT kernel based machines are drastic!  the NT based machines also don't handle memory the same way, programs running in win9x share memory so when an app throws an error it usually screws everything else up.  NT based machines allocate memory seperately as much a possible so when an app locks up the effects on the rest of the system are not as damaging as with 9x.


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## ack

Windows ME is terrible. The kernel has lots of errors and the OS is very susceptible to exploits.


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## Drastik

ack said:
			
		

> Windows ME is terrible. The kernel has lots of errors and the OS is very susceptible to exploits.



Amen to that.

Check out my topic here : 
http://www.computerforum.com/showthread.php?t=14241

PROOF! lol


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## Cromewell

Question: Is that Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition?
Also: Are we talking initial release or after patches and service packs?


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## Drastik

Service packs and patches never change the systems performance. Not drasticly anyway.


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## Hairy_Lee

My first decent PC came with windows ME... it ran ok for about 3 weeks and after that random crashes and general sluggishness ruined it completely.
It got so bad i bought windows 2000 off my mates dad... much more reliable


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## Praetor

DOS ... no protection at all hehe ... nothing like freely corruptable everything


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## FIN_Sphinxi

Every Windows is terrible


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## Praetor

But a good chunk of that is not because Microsoft programmers are incompetent (if you think so, sit down and have a chat with someone on their compiler team and if yer smart enough to realize it, you'll be humbled). There are three main reasons why Microsoft operating systems "suck"

 *Backwards compatability*. For the most part, we can use any given program made for an older OS on a newer OS. While this is being gradually phased out (started a bit with 2000, more so with XP/2003 and definitively so with Windows 6.x), having to support older application calls results in a good chunk of problems. Why? 

Just think of all the stupidities of programming with PDBs back in Dos/W9x days -- those still need to be supported because people still use those applications from time to time. Or even approaches to something to "normal" as IPC/Multitasking. Current revisions of Windows need to support older methods and while the beauty of DLLs has gone a long way to support this, it also forces the OS to suffer through a lot of baggage

The obvious solution is.... get rid of backwards compatability! Sure. But thats one of the big reasons "we all hate Macs". When Macs come out with a new something -- its not exactly what we'd consider backwards compatible. v6.x of Windows should make good progress in this direction but the fact of the matter is, people dont want to lose backwards compatability but they also dont want the bugginess that came with the programs written back in the day.

 *People want pretty.* The obvious case of this is Unix: consider the robustness of Unix and how its so not user friendly. If Windows was just like that, how many people do you think would be using personal computers? Not many. What kind of people would be using computers? Hardcore geeks. Think about that for a second. If it was just hardcore geeks using the OS, even if the OS was unstable .... we'd be able to fix it ourselves. I dont know about you but I dont fancy doing my own driver development or tweaking

_The simple matter is that Windows cannot be made into a hardcore OS simply because people dont want it that way._

 *Bad code*. Just like any code, MS programmers arent perfect and they make mistakes - not to mention compiler stupidities (cough)pentium4 instruction set(cough). Sure its a much bigger issue when the OS is buggy but (a) considering the size of the OS and (b) complexity of the OS and (c) how much back baggage they have to support and on top of that (d) they have to forgo a lot of functionality in order so that normal users dont get overwhelmed.


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## Lanther

ME is the one that gave me the most headaches.


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## rjkengr

most ppl think that 2000 > xp right?  If so why do most computer manufactures shell out xp os's on their computers?  is it a money thing?


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## jancz3rt

rjkengr said:
			
		

> most ppl think that 2000 > xp right?  If so why do most computer manufactures shell out xp os's on their computers?  is it a money thing?



Whaaaat! Do you mean to suggest that it is "greater than" XP? I don't think so. Windows 2000 is a network centred OS while the XP operating system is made for the normal user (XP Home) and the advanced user (XP Professional). The XP operating system is primarily entertainment centred and newer than the 2000 boasting greater compatibilty and potential..

http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/windows.htm

In my opinion, based on personal experience, Windows ME was good. I had very few problems as opposed to Windows 98SE that I had prior to that. However, I am aware that it was a nightmare for many.

JAN


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## mattpower3000

as if sum1 sed 2000, honestly...


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## SearchEnDie

I vote that M.E is the badest because I had a window m.e computer and it had so much errors plus it was slow. So I recently changed it to xp.


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## Archangel

Id say Windows ME.. is really crappy.. in the netherlands ME even stands for windows Meer Ellende..


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## Cromewell

> Service packs and patches never change the systems performance. Not drasticly anyway.


Ah but they do.  Windows 95 initial release was god awful, but after a service pack or 2 it was ok.  Windows 98, again initial release was terrible but by the sime second edition rolled around it was ok.


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## dave597

I'd rather use DOS than WinME.


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## rjkengr

i guess i've just never heard any complaints about 2000 where as I have with 2k.  This complaining probably arises from the more ppl using xp than 2000.  It being newer and more compatible makes sense.  I was just throwing that out there to see what you guys thought.


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## Cromewell

> i guess i've just never heard any complaints about 2000 where as I have with 2k


 2000 is 2k...do you mean 2000 vs XP (or ME)?


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## NeuromancerWGDD'U

Byteman said:
			
		

> DOS.  It's the mistake that bill built unstable shells on top of, (Win95/98/me) and has taken him years to completely get out of production, and producing nos DOS os's (WinNT/2k/XP).


Woah! Unstable!? It's a similar situation as to Linux, just to a much lighter degree. If you know what you're doing Windows 9X works like a dream. I've never had a problem that has persisted for more than an hour, and I've been running 98 since I was about 8 years old. All that's changed from 98 to NTFS systems is some serious idiot-proofing, and a loss of DOS compatibility. Granted, a lot of backwards compatibility is baggage, as Praetor stated, but look at Linux. Linux is, with a little tweaking, backwards compatible with just about anything. It's also much much faster than Windows OS's. If backwards compatibility is being sluffed off of new Windows OS's to increase performance, why is Linux able to handle it no problem? Simple. Idiot-proofing. If Windows were to make an advanced user OS, they wouldn't have to worry about spending 40% of their time coding to prevent dipwads from deleting system files.


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## SearchEnDie

WOw.... nice post.. And It seems like that windows 95 is the best os in the list:S


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## Praetor

> If you know what you're doing Windows 9X works like a dream. I've never had a problem that has persisted for more than an hour, and I've been running 98 since I was about 8 years old.


Well you will also know then that in a pre-2K environment you can write programs that fck with hardware directly ... which is stupid ... just stop and think about that



> All that's changed from 98 to NTFS systems is some serious idiot-proofing, and a loss of DOS compatibility


Ill go easy on you cuz yer only 15 and say simply that, that was not the only change.



> It's also much much faster than Windows OS's.


Yes but development under a linux platform, efficient or otherwise is a pain whereas Windows development is heavily supported and if the community wants stuff badly enough, APIs get made



> If backwards compatibility is being sluffed off of new Windows OS's to increase performance, why is Linux able to handle it no problem?


Yes but linux, based on Unix is a lot older than windows. One would expect nothing less. Furthermore, id like to see linux run -- straight out of the box, an arbitrary application, selected from a list of every single x86 application.



> Idiot-proofing. If Windows were to make an advanced user OS, they wouldn't have to worry about spending 40% of their time coding to prevent dipwads from deleting system files.


And then people wouldnt use computers meaning there wouldnt be nearly the same market as there is now... meaning less hardware devlopment....


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## Cromewell

> they wouldn't have to worry about spending 40% of their time coding to prevent dipwads from deleting system files


Yes but unleash those same dipwads on a unix based system and you'll have some serious issues.  The OSs are targeted at a different user base, claiming an advanced user OS would prevent dipwads from deleting stuff is crazy, dipwads are, by denfinition, dipwads and will bugger up any and everything they can


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## NeuromancerWGDD'U

Cromewell said:
			
		

> Yes but unleash those same dipwads on a unix based system and you'll have some serious issues.  The OSs are targeted at a different user base, claiming an advanced user OS would prevent dipwads from deleting stuff is crazy, dipwads are, by denfinition, dipwads and will bugger up any and everything they can


True enough. More or less the point of my post was more to the effect that if Microsoft would gear a small portion of their efforts to providing an advanced user operating system, they would have a handhold in the advanced user market. Advanced users tend to be much more committed to IT, and if they created an advanced user OS, as well as a series of advanced user applications, they would be able to offer a system that can handle, with great efficiency, not only backwards compatibility, but additionally security functionality, graphical editing capabilities, multi-tasking, and a host of other features that are generally lacking (or that could use improvement).

I'm by no means an advocate of Microsoft products, I'm just amazed that they've let the advanced user market pass them by.

Not only would they have a hand-hold in the advanced user market, but if those same dipwads decided to use the advanced user OS, it could only mean profit for Microsoft  . For MS, it's a win/win.


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## Praetor

> I'm by no means an advocate of Microsoft products, I'm just amazed that they've let the advanced user market pass them by.


By the same means AMD and Intel dont live on the sales of their top end processors but rather to the majority.


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## jbrown456

i hate windows me!!!


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## winxp_hater

I'd have to say that since I run 4 comp's here at the house and laptop for mobile office work each likes a different operating system.
 My Gateway has tried all the operating systems and with it's 600 celeron processor it runs best on windows xp pro. 
 My dell with the 2.0 gig p4 hates everything but Linux Turkix.
My amd with it's 1.8 runs great on 2000.
Laptop likes 98 s.e. Probably because its a 133 mhz.
 The compaq runs win xp pro fine as well on its 600 celeron as well.

 Notice never mentioned 95 or 98 except for s.e. 
 IMHO it's not which operating is best it's what the machine readily runs the best.
as far as backwards compatiblity if it didnt have that feature avail why would you want it? Seems like all the software I have I paid dearly for it.


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## cillo76

I have been fortunate enough no to have dealt with ME. My buddy has though, and I had to convince him to go back to 98 or up to 2000, but his games wouldn't play well on 2000 so he settle on XP.

ME=not good. Worse software title since Microsoft Paint.


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## Hairy_Lee

Windows 2000 was my first taste of a reasonably stable microsoft OS. I never really liked 98 SE so when i got fed up with ME crashing cos i had too much RAM there was only one choice that i was willing to make... didn't have many drivers straight out of the box but once it was all set up i never looked back


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## tweaker

I was quite pleased with a tweaked 98se (great gaming os at the time).

Btw *winxp_hater*, what do you dislike about this awesome os? I'm just being curious..


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## winxp_hater

Tweaker nothing really just thought it made for a good name. O.K I b.s'ed a lil . I have the file hang up thing other then that thought it has proven itself as great. Best thing is no blue screen of death ......................


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## tweaker

winxp_hater said:
			
		

> I have the file hang up thing


 
Oh you mean the,

*"Cannot delete X: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again."*

issue?

Is that easily fixed problem supposed to be a reason to hate XP.. 

j/k


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## kof2000

whenever my windows ME crashes i cannot end tasks and had to hard restart. when i was working in the office i've used windows 3.1 LOL.


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## jjsevdt

I don't know why they even bother ed with ME


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## winxp_hater

tweaker said:
			
		

> Oh you mean the,
> 
> *"Cannot delete X: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again."*
> 
> issue?
> 
> Is that easily fixed problem supposed to be a reason to hate XP..
> 
> j/k






 Well Tweaker right now yes.
 Easily fixed no.
 Tried everything. 
But nuff bout prob and back to original post.


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## DCIScouts

*Why did Microsoft bother with it?*

In college, I went around to fix various people's computers with problems and issues that they were having...  I would have to say that out of all the computers that I fixed, only 2 of countless ones were ME operating systems.  I now work in a electronics store, and when people have problems with their computer software, most of them have ME.  My question is, why did MS even bother releasing this piece of crap that was lovingly called Windows Millenium?  While everyone was trying to prevent the Y2K bug, MS released one in an OS form...


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## jesbax

i hate ME.  it was the most hurry up job microsoft came up with.  All my customers that have win ME hate it.  it has costed them a lot of trouble and most of my customer are over the age of 50.  The only two OS i work with and upgrade their pc's to win 2000 or win xp. I have 3 computers at home and they run windows xp.  MY wife's computer is a 700mhz p3 with 256MBs of ram.  My server is a p1 200mhz with 208MBs of ram. and my computer is well look at sig.


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## Praetor

> "Cannot delete X: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again."


Heheh relating a bit to point 2 ... people cant be bothered to handle individual processes one at a time (and still have all sorts of automatic crap happening for them)


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## sauce_18

Mon The Sinclair Spectrum Lol


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## ZER0X

WIN ME is by far the worst. So many freakin errors


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## Verve

I never liked ME... 98 was the best for its time though.


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## timothyb89

Drastik said:
			
		

> Amen to that.
> 
> Check out my topic here :
> http://www.computerforum.com/showthread.php?t=14241
> 
> PROOF! lol



I'm using ME right now. It's not really THAT bad... 
Mac sure is, though... 
The only reasons Macs don't get viruses is because they are sooooooo expensive, all the hackers are smart enough to realize they would be sued if they gave a mac a virus, because anything a Mac does when almost anything happens to it, well, I'm just going to say IT CRASHES!


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## maroon1

windows me sucks


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## OS Dragon

I'm grew up with Win 95 and 98 and then I had to move to 2000 that messed my head up and then a quick transaction to XP (best of all Windows OSes - yet). I think Windows 2000 and Windows Me are screwed up *Full Stop*.


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## Lordmord

I had ME, tonnes for hack were make on that computer.


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## 4W4K3

Drastik said:
			
		

> You know what i mean... os's that look like todays os's...
> 
> Get with the times, smart asses lol



You mean GUI based OS's, and not single line command prompt's? They're still OS's lol.

I'd say in general all of Windows 9x sucked, but that's because i only had to use them for a small while. I jumped into 2000, then into XP...and looking back it made it seem that 9x was just crap.

I vote ME. It was released in 2000, and it had terrible stability problems. They had "tweaked" the memory management (i think thtas what it was...) and it made it very unstable. Since Windows XP was due in 2001, they never bothered to fix ME and anyone who had it basically just had to grit there teeth and wait a year for XP. That's not very commendable IMHO.


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## Cromewell

I don't know if I would call Win9x crap.  I like Win98SE, the only real bad OSs on there would be Win95 and Win98 assuming they were the initial release versions (aka not SE or after any service packs).  ME wasn't a good OS for gaming, if it was just an internet/email/ms office computer there was nothing wrong with it, and it was stable.


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## dhaynes

i never had windows ME, but i've heard all of the stories about how it was made just so people would switch off of windows 98, get the unreliable ME, and upgrade to xp because ME was so awful.


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## kurra_t

windows me is the worst, but i heard some engineers worked on it later and rectified most of them


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## Motoxrdude

To be honestm i think windows xp home edition sucks. When a program crashes it takes forever for my computer to get out of the crash(about 10-15 seconds). Windows xp Pro is a little better when programs crash though. I hate windows xp, i would much rather use windows 2k


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## OS Dragon

Motoxrdude, its a lot harder to crash XP Pro because its soo much more stable. Home is like a straw house but XP is more likely made from cement (depening and the hardware).
Win XP is still alot better than all of its predecessors by miles.


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## 4W4K3

Besides the networking drawbacks, and somehwhat different display options, XP Home is just as reliable as Pro for me...it almost never crashes, and I run my PC without shutting it off when I can. There are tweaks to be able to login to a Domain now, and it only requires a bit of work to get it to act just like Pro.


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## tractorboy

I Repair PCs and do networking for a living and I consider ME to be a giant computer virus.


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## Motoxrdude

SearchEnDie said:
			
		

> I vote that M.E is the badest because I had a window m.e computer and it had so much errors plus it was slow. So I recently changed it to xp.


Badest? Lol, so i take it you didnt do that great in english class? Lol


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## MatrixEVO

My mom had ME on a Dell desktop she bought back in 01, that thing had to be constantly maintained. I eventually built her a new desktop with XP Pro and better hardware, she was extremely happy to get rid of ME and her P.O.S. Dell.  So that is why I voted ME as the worst OS.


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## kof2000

WINDOWS ME has all the drivers a old pc would need though and it installs and boots really fast other than the CONSTANT LOCKING UP AND HANGING AND UNABLE TO GET OUT OF A NON RESPONSIVE PROGRAM, it kicks ass.


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## jancz3rt

*Haha*

I find it funny that everyone hates Windows ME. I have never had problems with it. In fact Windows 98SE was a nightmare in my case. Actually, I would say Windows ME was a nice transitional OS and worked great.

JAN


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## Jilop

*Reply*

On a scale from 1-10 (10 the best I see)
1. Windows 1.0
2. Windows 3.11
3. Windows 95
4. Windows Me
5. Windows VISTA ( From what I see in Beta's Will have a lot of bugs thanks to last time core change from original VISTA that was a failure to Windows 2003 core) 
5. Windows 98
6. Windows 2000
7. Windows XP
8. Windows 2003


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## CmoAMD

Why do you guys blame yourselves so much? I hate ME, I also dont like ME, ME is the worst..... 

lol jk. I never really had a problem with any OS. I guess my faint memories of 95 were that it took forever, but that was all computers back then, 98 was ok, 2000 was awesome... and XP is, well, yea.... the best. 

My friend has XP with ME on it I think, is that possible? His works good... never complains anyway.

Cant wait til I try out x64


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## diduknowthat

I'm not even gonna get started on how bad ME is...


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## Bobo

me sucks...but so do all the rest.  I think Win2000 and Win 3.11 suck the least, though


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## Motoxrdude

Yea, when i had ME, i was even more newbish than i am now. I always changed settings taht i had no idea did and the computer would always lock up. I dont know whos fault it is so im not going to say anything about ME or me.


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## Charles_Lee

to be honest ME has lots of problems, but the loading time is reallllly fast

my pentium 1 loaded up in 30sec i think...


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## Bobo

Charles_Lee said:
			
		

> to be honest ME has lots of problems,


Really!? Is that why it won the poll by like 85%?!?!


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## ceewi1

Windows RG!!!
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/winrg.php

Seriously though, Windows ME was, for me at least, the worst.


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## BLK1985

Out of the ones I have experience with, which is everyone on your list, I pick Me.  It is Fin worthless, I tried to fix my uncles computer and I worked for hours with out much help.  I then told him get rid of Me and you should probaly buy a new computer too and then call me.


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## shenry

Definetly windows ME


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## Shane

I voted Windows Me.

Very crap os


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## jp198780

deffinately ME...


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## JamesBart

95 is the one that i only really know so im going to say that one! but by the sounds ME was terrible! saying that i should be running it on a laptop for the internet. i'll just see what happens!


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## The_Other_One

It's most certinally ME.  That OS has many more flaws in it than 98SE ever did.  You really get no benefits, either, as it's still running off the command prompt and all.  I know for the longest time people didn't realize the difference between 2000 and ME.  Many thought it was a name used interchangeably.

I don't understand why so many people voted for 95.  I used it a good bit, and of course had my share of problems...  The OS is so old anymore and not supported, how couldn't you have problems.  However, for it's time, it was pretty good.  I mean I don't recall that many problems from it.

Also, you don't have NT in your little poll(sorry if this was mentioned, I just skimmed the first page of posts )  I've really never used that OS, but I hear it's quite bad


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## Bobo

Why is it quite bad?  NT is the best OS i've ever used....very stable (well it's for a workstation...duh) the only bad thing is lack of support for games.


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## Jet

Windows ME is pathetic. I've been there and done that, and I hope that I never have to deal with it again


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## Geoff

Did you know that Vista is built off of Windows ME, and the only changes made are some new backgrounds and a new taskbar?


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## Jet

Prove it.


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## Geoff

Jet said:


> Prove it.


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## Jet

Sorry, that's not proof for me...you can just edit the theme and do that . Try again.


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## Geoff




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## Archangel

Lmao  XD

anyhow.. my vote goes for ME too... there is a reson it has the name Meer Elende over here in the netherlands  ( More Trouble, pretty literairy translated)






yea... i know, it's old,.. but still funny


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## jp198780

sooo then Vista is junk like ME?


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## jp198780

Shenry, i just noticed this thread was almost a yr old..


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## tweaker

I love 95, 98se, 2k, 2k3s as well as XP.

Only one to bug me somewhat is ME, although I've not been using it that much to complain.


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## Burgerbob

I hate ME. I love 2000, 95 was great... ME just sucked. And i dont have anything against XP.


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## Jet

[-0MEGA-];483848 said:
			
		

>



Hmm. Photoshop, anyone?

Like, I mean a link to an article at a trusted site.


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## Geoff

jp198780 said:


> sooo then Vista is junk like ME?


Nah, i'm just playing 



Jet said:


> Hmm. Photoshop, anyone?
> 
> Like, I mean a link to an article at a trusted site.


Ya it's photoshopped.  I took a Windows ME screenshot and one of Vista and used the Vista task bar.  That part actually looks pretty good I think.


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## BigBDrugStores

how could anyone not vote for me?


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## jp198780

omega, props 2 you man, good job ahaa, you really got me ahaa, very good..


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## pyvnetrvne.

jp198780 said:


> omega, props 2 you man, good job ahaa, you really got me ahaa, very good..


You mean to say that you fell for it?


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