Bitch Board

xp hogs all the resources why was ME bad just cause it crashed once in a while, who cares if I had ME i would be done by now.

hit me back at josephiscool86@yahoo.com

i'll hit you back right now!  what are your system specs?  eg, ram, harddrive, vid card (all things xp hogs ) and how big is your pagefile?  (that's right click MY COMPUTER>PROPERTIES>ADVANCED>PERFORMANCE>PERFORMANCE OPTIONS)

I can't really speak of XP as I don't know anyone (computer literate) who uses it; but it's my belief that Windows ME should never have been released at all. More problems than I care to list here (one that sticks out in my mind is the failure to release allocated memory when it is no longer in use). Especially on an older machine, you might have better luck doing what a number of people I know have done, retrograde to Windows 98 if you can get hold of a copy.

Yes, use Windows98SE or Windows2000. They use less resources than XP and are more stable than ME.

I am computer literate and use XP for my main computer.  I used win 2000 for 6 months, with all SPs, and it was way less stable.  You just have to go into the settings and dissable all the visual crap like tely tuby menues and transparancy.  that and reinstall every month or two, but I just got windows and progs on a seperate HD so I wipe and reinstate a copy I have in a backup partition.

if you think your os isn't releasing memory, you can create a visual basic file that'll do it for you!  open notepad and type

Mystring = Space(16000000)

where space is the amount in kb (i think) of physical ram you have.  save it as a .vbs to your desktop and click it once in awhile.

[HTH]

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

HTH

Merry Christmas

For everyone's reference:
Windows ME is Windows 98 with extra features (they both suck).
Windows XP is Windows 2000 with extra features (they both rock).

Windows ME and 98 are very unstable because they are based on the old Windows 95 designs.  XP and 2000 are based on the new NT designs and are much more secure, stable, flexible, etc.

Given the choice, one should always go with XP or 2000 over ME or 98.

Windows XP will run slowly on any system that barely meets the requirements.  I got it to run on a Pentium 233mmx with only 64mb of RAM, but it was painfully slow.

I then wiped it clean and installed 2000, and it runs quite well.

The big difference between XP and 2000 is that XP likes at least 128mb RAM (256 recommended).

if you think your os isn't releasing memory, you can create a visual basic file that'll do it for you!  open notepad and type

Mystring = Space(16000000)

where space is the amount in kb (i think) of physical ram you have.  save it as a .vbs to your desktop and click it once in awhile.

Sorry to sound dumb, but how do we know if our computer isn't releasing memory, if we're gettings low memory warnings?  Also I use ME, is it really that big a deal to swich OS's, I've never had a big problem with it.  But if you guys say I'm better off then wth.

Windows has been designed to "release memory" when needed since version 3.1.  Even before that, MS DOS has utilities built in to "release memory" whenever appropriate.  Windows 2000 and XP in particular are designed to handle higher amounts of RAM.  This is one reason why they are so much better than 98 & ME.  Memory managment is one of Windows' primary functions.

Here's the scoop:  If you are getting low memory warnings, then YOU JUST NEED MORE RAM.  Especially if you are talking about Win 98 or higher.  Modern computers need a lot of RAM because that is how they work.  If your system is new enough to run Win 98 or higher, then memory for your computer cannot cost very much.  You might as well pick up an upgrade chip and snap it in.  You'll save yourself a lot of headaches (and system crashes).

There is no magic program or process that will give you any more usable memory than your system already has.

Upgrading to XP is a snap.  Going from ME to 2000 may be a little tricky, but should go Ok for an experienced tech.

I never saw your system specifications, but if you have the choice to get out of ME now, then do it.  Either to XP or 2000.  Do it before ME does something to make you really mad.

So far, I've used 3.11, 98, 98SE, 2000 and XP. Out of these, I've used XP and 98SE the most.

Personally I'll take Windows 2000 over XP, as the "enhanced user friendlyness" of XP drives me mad. It took me a good couple of minutes to find the Control Panel button on a friend's machine with XP Home.

In my experience, XP doesn't seem to crash as much as 98SE (the blue screen of death etc), but the programs you run in XP seem to fail just as much as in 98SE.

I found 98 much more prone to crashes (both OS and program based) than 98SE, so Microsoft must have done something right between the two.

It's just a simple matter of learning something different.  10 years from now, we will all be using an interface that you cannot possibly dream of now.   It will be totally different, and we will adapt.  All in all, it will most likely be better than what came before... as always (except Windows ME, that was just an embarrassment to MS.)

I prefer XP greatly over 2k because of the flexibility.  You can configure the START menu ANY way you like, and the Professional version has HTTP & FTP servers as well as many other EXTREMELY powerfull features for only $199-US.  Plus there are things the average user may not even notice or realize, like the greatly enhanced System Restore feature, XP can be moved from one system to another without the HDD controller driver having a hissy fit about "Inaccessable Boot Device" (less).
The more I use Windows XP, the more I like it.  My clients all prefer it over any other operating system (when setup by myself, of course .

Windows XP is actually faster than W2k but ONLY if you have adequate hardware to run it on. If you have an older system, definately go with W2k as it does run better on slower systems. The biggest reason to upgrade from 95, 98, and ME is FAT32.

Wow, there's an echo in here.  That's just what I said: 2k on an older machine, XP on a newer one.  NEVER 95, 98, or ME (they all suck).

FAT32 has very little to do with the operating system.  I just so happens that Windows 95 OSR2 (second edition) was the first to use FAT32 instead of FAT16.  This allowed for larger hard drives (over 2gig), that's all.

You can use FAT32 on Windows 95 and all OS's that come after (including 2k and XP).

NTFS can only be used with Windows 2k, XP, or NT.

Note:  NTFS is NEVER a good idea for the drive that you run Windows from.  If there is a problem that requires you to reinstall from a floppy or another boot device, or manually make changes to the drive, it cannot be done with NTFS.  NTFS is ONLY good for security.  After many years of testing on many different systems, I can tell you that there are almost no performance differences, only security.  Use it on your storage drives only, not the boot/system drive.

This thread is quite old now, and still I feel that Windows XP (pro or home) is the best "Main-Stream" OS ever.  I'll bet Linux has the potential to be much better, but I'm not familiar with it (much), and it's not really "main-stream".

Yes, XP has it's troubles (just like Mac OS X, and all other OS's), but all in all, it's great.  Now, with Service Pack 2, it's pretty secure too.