The name says it all. Microsoft Windows Me -- short for Millennium Edition -- is designed for individual home users, not for business. Available as an update package (AU$380 for full product, Upgrade AU$109 from September 14th 2000, until January 2001) and expected to ship on many desktop and notebook systems in September, Windows Me is the most radical upgrade yet in the Windows 9x family.
Major enhancements over Windows 98 Second Edition include multimedia features such as an automated video editor with high-powered compression and simple import from video cameras, a wizard to automate scanners and still-image cameras, and a "skinnable" media jukebox/recorder. New system-protection features include a wizard that restores a dysfunctional system to an earlier, functional state and new easy setup features simplify home networking and broadband access. In addition, support for the Universal Plug and Play specification will let Windows communicate with devices such as refrigerators and wearable computers.
Crucial under-the-hood changes include the removal of the Windows 9x option to restart or boot to the MS-DOS command prompt (DOS applications are still usable in DOS windows, however) and an overhaul of Windows' Internet plumbing that improves performance but causes incompatibilities with some widely used Internet software. The help system has vastly improved troubleshooters and more informative error messages; the whole system is friendlier to experts and novices alike.
Windows Me uses the same desktop interface as Windows 2000 Professional. Some of Windows Me's underlying code -- notably the new TCP/IP stack that connects to the Internet -- is also borrowed from Windows 2000, but Windows Me is an upgrade of the DOS-based Windows 9x series at heart. Business users who need advanced security, reliability, and networking features will prefer Windows 2000.
For nontechnical users, Windows Me's PC Health features offer welcome relief from system headaches, and most of these features work entirely in the background. The System Restore component backs up crucial system files when the computer is idle, making a snapshot of the system state every 10 hours of computing time. Additional snapshots can be created at any time by running the System Restore wizard. If the system stops working, and if you can at least reboot (even if only in Safe Mode), you can run the wizard and choose among earlier saved system states to restore. The current state of your documents and e-mail won't be overwritten, but the damaged system files will be overwritten with working copies.
The System Restore component springs into action whenever you delete any potentially important files from the Windows or Program Files folder. When we deleted 500MB from the Program Files folder, Windows worked in the background for 20 minutes and compressed the deleted files in case we wanted to restore them. On a 400-MHz machine, System Restore's background operation caused a slight slowdown, but it shouldn't be noticeable on a 600-MHz system.
The System File Protection feature (based on the similar Windows File Protection in Windows 2000) silently prevents applications from overwriting crucial DLL files with older or nonstandard versions and should drastically reduce the chance that a newly installed application will stop other programs from working. Users can also switch on a new AutoUpdate feature that downloads newer versions of system files in the background and then prompts you to restore them.
Multimedia Center
The operating system makes multimedia creation easy. The Windows Movie Maker records video from an attached camera or imports existing files, then splits the video into clips for editing using technology borrowed from high-end video-editing software. Existing videos can be imported from all standard formats (except RealMedia) but can be output only in Windows Media Format, not AVI or MPEG.
The Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) feature uses a wizard interface for previewing, creating, and managing images from scanners and digital still cameras. Basic features can be used with any plug-and-play scanner, but with a WIA-compatible camera you can preview and manage pictures without downloading them; more than 60 WIA-enabled camera models (including most released in recent months) will be on the market when Windows Me hits the streets. The wizard runs automatically when a WIA-enabled camera is plugged into a USB port or a button is pressed on a plug-and-play scanner.
The new Windows Media Player 7 works with most standard audio and video formats, again with the exception of RealMedia, and includes a Web radio tuner, a well-designed jukebox, and a file-transfer utility that copies and compresses existing files or streaming media to portable MP3 players and Windows CE devices. The interface is less convoluted than most third-party media players, but Microsoft wastes a lot of screen space in an attempt to make the Media Player look cool, and, on our tests, the program was more crash-prone than anything else in Windows Me.
Home Networking
A home networking wizard walks you through the process of setting
up and customising file, printer, and Internet sharing on a Windows
Me machine connected to any peer-to-peer network. The wizard
optionally creates a disk that can be used to install the Windows Me
network software on other computers that you want to include on the same
network, even if the other computers are running Windows 95 or 98. A new
Folder Options applet in the Control Panel provides a direct route to file
association and other customization features. To protect against reckless use,
crucial system files cannot be viewed in Windows Explorer unless you mark a
checkbox in the applet.
Enhanced power-management includes a hibernation mode similar to the one in Windows 2000. If your hardware supports it, Windows Me saves everything in memory (including open applications) to a storage area on disk, then powers down the system. When the machine is switched on again later, the system quickly returns to the same state prior to hibernation. Windows Me is more strict than Windows 2000 in deciding whether a system supports hibernation mode: On one 18-month-old computer tested by PC Magazine Labs, Windows 2000 supported hibernation while Windows Me did not.
Other additions are not as exciting: Internet Explorer 5.5 and Outlook Express 5.5 come with Windows Me, but the only notable enhancement over earlier versions is a new print preview feature in IE. NetMeeting 3.1 is also a part of the package, but its home-networking features are already available in downloadable copies.
If you have ever installed a home network, virtual private network, or broadband software under Windows 95 or 98, you probably bumped into an error message telling you that you could use only six instances of TCP/IP-which meant that Windows 9x could connect to the Internet through no more than six networking components and that no Internet connections were available for the new software you wanted to install. The new TCP/IP software built into Windows Me removes this limitation, and you can install as many networking features as you want without being forced to remove existing ones.
Windows Me is built on ancient DOS code but no longer includes the real-mode DOS that let Windows 9x restart in MS-DOS mode or boot to a DOS prompt. A surprising benefit of the change is that DOS windows and full-screen DOS boxes under Windows Me are snappier than in earlier Windows versions. Advanced users, however, will have to cope with Windows Me's inability to load device drivers or memory-resident utilities listed in the Config.sys or Autoexec.bat files used by earlier versions of DOS and Windows. If you want to use memory-resident programs in DOS windows, they must either be launched manually or from a batch file that you create and list in the Properties tab of the MS-DOS Command Prompt shortcut.
Officially, Microsoft says you can boot to the real-mode command prompt only from the Emergency Boot Disk, which may leave too little memory free for running BIOS-flashing and similar programs that run only from the command prompt. Unofficially, Microsoft insiders told us to create a minimal bootable floppy disk by copying Io.sys and Command.com from the WindowsCommandEBD folder to a blank formatted disk.
Reliability Concerns
Is Windows Me more reliable than Windows 98 SE, and should you
upgrade an existing machine? Most users will upgrade without
problems, but if your system includes cutting-edge broadband and
firewall software designed for the Windows 9x TCP/IP stack, you may
be in for trouble.
When PC Magazine Labs upgraded a heavily loaded Windows 98 SE system to Windows Me, the installer first refused to run because it mistakenly reported an incompatibility with iVision's WinPoET 1.x ADSL connection software. With WinPoET removed from the system, the installer repeatedly locked up during the hardware detection phase, and we were able to recover only by booting to the DOS prompt from the Emergency Boot Disk and removing WRQ's AtGuard firewall software -- a solution that we found only by trial and error. When the upgrade was complete, the system ran smoothly for a few hours but then became unstable. Even the System Restore wizard didn't help -- and crashed when it tried.
On the same machine, a subsequent clean installation (not an upgrade) was uneventful, but even this fresh setup was notably less stable than Windows 98 SE on the same hardware. A possible sign of inadequate beta testing appeared when the Emergency Boot Disk crashed one of PC Magazine Labs' test systems while loading SCSI CD-ROM support; Microsoft will post a workaround on its support site. We were eventually able to use a Windows 98 emergency disk instead.
According to our benchmark tests, Windows Me is not an overwhelming improvement over Windows 98. On our Business Winstone 99 tests on two desktops and two notebooks, each equipped with both Windows Me (with IE 5.5) and Windows 98 Second Edition (with IE 5.0), the latter OS scored higher on all tests on all machines. And on i-Bench, Windows Me showed only a slight improvement on both page-loading tests and on the Java Virtual Machine test, but it was slower on the XML: CSS test, once again on all of our test machines.
We then upgraded the Windows 98 machines' browsers to IE 5.5 and reran our i-Bench tests to see whether the newer browser would affect performance. We found that it did, indeed: With IE 5.5, the Windows 98 PCs bested the Windows Me systems on page-loading tests on all machines, as well as on the XML: CSS test (on all but one machine).
Windows Me adds multimedia razzle-dazzle to the staid Windows environment and adds troubleshooting features that will rescue home users from hours of frustration. If you're buying a new home computer, get one with Windows Me preinstalled. If you insist on upgrading an existing system, you may want to wait for the inevitable service pack.
Microsoft Windows Me
Company: Microsoft
Ph: 13 20 58; Fax: 02 9805 1108
Price: AU$380 for full product; Upgrade, AU$109 until January 2001.
Rating: 4 Star
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