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Windows Millennium Edition ("Windows Me") Beta 3 Reviewed
Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Windows ME Beta 3 is a surprisingly decent product, proving that the old Windows 9x code-base is far more resilient than previously expected. There are simple changes, such as a tweaked and simplified user interface based on Windows 2000, but the big changes are all under the hood. For example, Windows ME offers a host of reliability improvements that will benefit any Windows 98 user, including System Restore, System File Protection, and the removal of Real Mode DOS. And despite the questionable bundling of an enhanced Media Player and a movie editing application in a day and age where the company is being sued by the U.S. government for product tying, Microsoft seems to have finally gotten in right with Windows ME.
In this review, I take a look at Windows Millennium Edition ("Windows ME") Beta 3, which was released on April 11, 2000. The final release of this product, which essentially marks the end of the Windows 9x line of products, is currently set for June 2, 2000; expect to see it in stores and bundled with new machines approximately 6 weeks after that.
The Millennium Test bed
To accurately gauge the success of Windows Me, I tested Beta 3 and a number of pre-Beta 3 builds on a variety of systems, in both upgrade and full install situations. The following systems were tested with Windows Me Beta 3:
- Dual processor Celeron 500 with 256 MB RAM (Windows Me only sees one processor). This system includes a Voodoo3 video card, Microsoft USB speakers, a SCSI CDR drive, two 13.6 GB IDE hard drives, an IDE CD-ROM, a USB keyboard and mouse, an HP LaserJet 5P printer, and a Diamond RIO 500 media player. Windows Me was initially clean-installed onto this system; later, a clean install of Windows 98 SE was upgraded to Windows Me.
- Celeron 400 with 128 MB RAM; system includes two 5.1 GB IDE hard drives, a SCSI CDR, an IDE CD-ROM, a Creative Labs AWE-64 sound card, and a parallel port scanner. A heavily used Windows 98 system was upgraded to Windows Me Beta 3.
- Celeron 433 with 48 MB RAM; system includes one 2 GB hard drive and an IDE CD-ROM. Windows Me was clean installed onto this system.
- Pentium II 400 with 128 MB RAM. This system includes a USB scanner, a 6 GB IDE hard drive, an IDE CD-ROM drive, and a USB mouse. Windows Me was clean installed onto this system.
- Pentium II 266 laptop with 160 MB RAM, a 4.3 GB hard drive, IDE CD-ROM drive, PC card-based network card, USB ZIP 100 drive, and a docking station. This system was upgraded to Windows Me from a heavily used Windows 98 install.
All of the systems are connected to each other on a 100 Mbs home network that receives Internet access via a cable modem attached to the Pentium II 400, which was configured for Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). Some were configured for dual-boot installs with Windows 2000 as well.
I encountered a number of issues installing and using Windows ME Beta 3 on these systems, which I'll discuss below as appropriate. Some noteable problems: The 3Com Fast Etherlink 16-bit PC card in the laptop was not properly detected (I needed to install the drivers from 3Com's driver disk) and the USB mice were useless during the DOS-based portions of clean installs, forcing me to use the keyboard only. I don't consider either of these issues to be serious. However, I did encounter two Setup issues that I do consider serious; these are discussed below.
Upgrading Windows 98 to Windows Me
I performed three upgrades from Windows 98 SE to Windows ME Beta 3; two were fairly "dirty" long-term Windows 98 installations (Figure), one was a clean Win98 install (Figure). Windows ME will upgrade Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 98 SE, but not Windows 3.1--Windows 3.1 users will need to upgrade to 98 first. The Windows ME upgrade installation is straightforward, even elegant (Figure): virtually no prompts are used, beyond an acceptance of the license agreement, a choice to save your system files in the event you want to downgrade back to your previous OS, and a choice to create a Millennium startup disk. And unlike the Windows 98 setup procedure, each of the options that require user input all occur during the first phase of Setup: After that, you can walk away and come back in 30-60 minutes, depending on your system, to test the new OS (Figure).
When you upgrade, you're also treated to a nice-looking Setup program (Figure) that replaces the stodgy version from Windows 98 (DOS-based clean installs will still be treated to the old installation program; see below). Otherwise, the process is amazingly similar to the Windows 98 Setup, requiring the same mind-numbing number of reboots (Figure).
I was interested to see how Windows ME handled a fairly "dirty" Windows 98 installation (Figure) with numerous installed applications and a customized look and feel using Microsoft's Themes applet. When you upgrade a Windows 9x machine to Windows ME, Microsoft retains the desktop icon layout that was used previously (in other words, My Computer will appear on top of the screen, instead of below My Documents, where it typically appears in Windows ME, Figure). But unlike Windows 2000, the Windows ME Setup spews an unwanted collection of icons on your desktop, including MSN setup, Online Services, Windows Media Player, and Connect to the Internet (Internet Connection Wizard), which is especially curious since most people upgrading to Windows ME will have already set up Internet access (Figure). And Windows Media Player is elevated to a new position of power with a separate icon in the Quick Launch toolbar in the taskbar (Figure).
On a positive note, the color scheme and Themes used previously were retained, which was appreciated. However, Windows ME annoyingly changes some settings that would be easy enough to leave alone. For example, I had removed the Recycle Bin icon from the desktop with TweakUI after changing its default behavior to physically delete all deleted files. Not only did Windows ME return the icon to the desktop in each upgrade, but it reverted the Recycle Bin behavior to its default as well.
On Windows 9x systems that use the default color scheme (teal desktop with dark gray windows), however, Setup forces a change to a new Windows 2000-like color scheme (Figure) with a blue backdrop and light gray windows.
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