Preinstalled windows ME

[blubomber]

I am getting ready to help my sister-in-law buy a computer. She wants a "name brand" computer and i am here to help her pick the one that best fits her needs. The only area i am confused on is, should i go ahead a get one with preinstalled winME or request one with win98SE? I have been hearing some success stories with winME preinstalled on a new computer and was wondering what the good people here at SysOpt think about it. How is winME working for those who have had it for a while now? Thanks for any feedback.

[Fat|Tony]

Do your sister a favor and go with 98SE. My mom just got a new Gateway *shudder* and it came with ME installed and it sucks. I keep getting these stupid error messages that make no sense at all and are just annoying, it crashes at least once a day and winME is just the worst os i've ever used, as soon as i upgrade my pc i'm going to get rid of ME and go with 98se (unless xp is out then i'll give that a whirl). But deffinatly go with 98SE, cause ME is just horrible

F|T

[Steve R Jones]

On the other hand, my new Dell came with winME and I love it. But win98 might be safer if she isn't too experianced.

[jansson_markus]

Just to make sure...

You ARE installing a decent firewall into it? ZoneAlarm is number one. And an antivirus? Norton or F-Secure I presume. And you ARE putting setting so that she doesnt blow up the computer when she goes to net? Hmmm.... And you, for heavens sake, remember to put on AUTOMATIC UPDATES on EVERY possible software there is...

...just wondering, since I have seen SO many system being "putted up" with absolutely NO level of security to user who know NOTHING about computers, internet and security. And I have seen where it all leads to... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

No offence, you and she might real gurus on computers, but 99% of people who use computers arent... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[prttybean]

Too true. Many regular users aren't aware of security/virus risks. My son's friends parents have a cable modem, they've been connected for about a year. I recently asked them about their firewall and got puzzled looks. Okay, I then asked them about their Antivirus software. More puzzled looks. They have three teenagers that open absolutely every peice of mail they get, etc. After a discussion of the huge risks they downloaded Zone Alarm and purchased some antivirus. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[mousepotato]

...well...I have ME & '98SE...when I first loaded ME on top of 98 I forgot to uninstall Norton...big trouble...I removed ME and fixed up 98 untill it was as good as it gets...only 1-3 errors a night, I did a reinstall of ME after removeing Norton and have had maybe 2
errors...total for the last 6 months!!...I also installed ME on a 700mhz Duron/chaintech system I built (virgin install) and it works flawlessly...I love ME but think it is picky about install...

...and the 768meg RAM works better in ME....lol

[This message has been edited by mousepotato (edited 06-07-2001).]