Microsoft windows millennium edition millennium

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition 4.90.3000 (OEM)

Product Type: 115 — OEM CD Full [bootable]

FILE: Windows_ME_Russian_OEM.iso

SIZE: 366 MB (384 751 616 bytes)

CRC32: 32E41600

MD5: B6319ACC171713F2EDE7A3FCA30C424B

SHA-1: E09308BDCF45481F736B5ED1BEC6786EEB9AA0AF

SHA-256: 765416B66D2363B7CEB5A008ECBF73AC47F5B145C385C73D00D976897CDE990F

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition 4.90.3000 (RETAIL)

Product Type: 101 — Retail CD Full [not bootable]

FILE: Windows_ME_Russian_RTL.iso

SIZE: 366 MB (383 922 176 bytes)

CRC32: CB3B94CF

MD5: 823291F9D08F342BA39958B2DE97FCC7

SHA-1: A9121CC583268A4BB712167263D153C3834D07A3

SHA-256: 049ADCBB9576299B743D84C8DA660F49C08B9D1358D8338F3A4CCF430ADF48E1

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition 4.90.3000 (Select)

Product Type: 110 — Select CD Full [not bootable]

FILE: Windows_ME_Russian_Select.iso

SIZE: 366 MB (383 924 224 bytes)

CRC32: A315F5ED

MD5: CBA66A1BE0E21963A633A896312DEC09

SHA-1: 707E07F78E4349C90A26C55AF9BF808125177389

SHA-256: 4E39C4AB3E4327DE77B74F89A587FB405D50730545D15EECEBF282276A48FCB0

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition 4.90.3000 (MSDN)

Product Type: — 111 — MSDN CD Full [not bootable]

FILE: Windows_ME_Russian_MSDN.iso

SIZE: 366 MB (383 924 224 bytes)

CRC32: 272236FE

MD5: 71634FD11B3105C72E77B69EDD1A18BD

SHA-1: 883480BDB5CA3257DA6026A71E62F15DE1FD77C2

SHA-256: C92B8DC468153CE3BC7DEB66D476622B25FF4F28C06FC632171FA5B56F8180DB

Windows Millennium Edition (Me)

Version of the Windows 9x operating system
Windows Me desktop, including taskbar and shortcuts
Developer	Microsoft
Source model	Closed source
Released to manufacturing	June 19, 2000; 23 years ago
General availability	September 14, 2000; 23 years ago[1]
Final release	4.90.3000 / September 14, 2000; 23 years ago[2]
Marketing target	Consumer
Platforms	IA-32
Kernel type	Monolithic kernel
License	Proprietary software
Preceded by	Windows 98 (1998)
Succeeded by	Windows XP (2001)[3]
Official website	Microsoft Windows Me – Home at the Wayback Machine (archived September 2, 2000)
Support status
Mainstream support ended on December 31, 2003 Extended support ended on July 11, 2006[4]

Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun «me»), often capitalized as Windows ME,^[5] is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was officially codenamed as Millennium. It is the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and then to retail on September 14, 2000. It was Microsoft’s main operating system for home users until the introduction of its successor Windows XP in October 2001.^[6]

Windows Me was targeted specifically at home PC users, and included Internet Explorer 5.5 (later default was Internet Explorer 6), Windows Media Player 7 (later default was Windows Media Player 9 Series) and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy to use for consumers.^[7] Microsoft also incorporated features first introduced in Windows 2000, which had been released as a business-oriented operating system seven months earlier, into the graphical user interface, shell and Windows Explorer. Although Windows Me was still ultimately based around MS-DOS like its predecessors, access to real-mode DOS was restricted to decrease system boot time.^[8]

Windows Me initially received a generally positive reception when it was released, however it soon garnered a very negative reception from many users due to stability problems. Windows Me became infamously known by many as one of the worst versions of Windows ever released, being unfavorably compared with its predecessor, Windows 98, several years before.^{[citation needed]} In October 2001, Windows XP was released to the public, having already been under development at the time of Windows Me’s release,^[9] and incorporated most, but not all, of the content of Windows Me, while being far more stable because of it being based on the Windows NT kernel. After the release of Windows XP in 2001, mainstream support for Windows Me ended on December 31, 2003, followed by extended support on July 11, 2006.^[10]

Development

At the 1998 Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates stated that Windows 98 would be the last iteration of Windows to use the Windows 9x kernel, with the intention for the next consumer-focused version to be based on the Windows NT kernel, unifying the two branches of Windows. However, it soon became apparent that the development work involved was too great to meet the aim of releasing before the end of 2000, particularly given the ongoing parallel work on the eventually-canceled Neptune project. The Consumer Windows development team was therefore re-tasked with improving Windows 98 while porting some of the look-and-feel from Windows 2000. Microsoft President Steve Ballmer publicly announced these changes at the next Windows HEIC in 1999.^[11]

On July 23, 1999, the first alpha version of Windows Me was released to testers. Known as Development Preview 1, it was very similar to Windows 98 SE, with the only major change being a very early iteration of the new Help and Support feature that would appear in the final version. Three more Development Previews were released over the subsequent two months.^[11]

The first beta version was released to testers and the industry press on September 24, 1999, with the second coming on November 24 that year. Beta 2 showed the first real changes from Windows 98, including importing much of the look-and-feel from Windows 2000, and the removal of real-mode DOS. Industry expert Paul Thurrott reviewed Beta 2 upon release and spoke positively of it in a review.^[12] By early 2000, Windows Me was reportedly behind schedule, and an interim build containing the new automatic update feature was released to allay concerns about a delayed-release.

In February 2000, Paul Thurrott revealed that Microsoft had planned to exclude Windows Me, as well as new releases of Windows NT 4.0, from CD shipments for MSDN subscribers. The reason given in the case of Me was that the OS was designed for consumers. However, Thurrott alleged that the real motivation behind both case to force software developers to move to Windows 2000.^[13] Three days later, following a write-in and call-in campaign by hundreds of readers, Microsoft announced that Windows Me (including development versions) would ship to MSDN subscribers after all. Microsoft also apologized personally to Thurrott, claiming he received misinformation, though in a follow-up article he stated that it was «clear that the decision […] actually changed».^[14]

Beta 3 was released on April 11, 2000, and this version marked the first appearance of its final startup and shutdown sounds derived from Windows 2000, as the previous betas used Windows 98’s startup and shutdown sounds.^[15]

Release

Although Microsoft signed off on the final build of Windows Me on June 28, 2000, after trialing three Release Candidate builds with testers, the final retail release was pushed back to September 14 for reasons that were not clear.^[11]

Shortly after Windows Me was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000,^[16] Microsoft launched a marketing campaign to promote it in the U.S., which they dubbed the Meet Me Tour. A national partnered promotional program featured the new OS, OEMs and other partners in an interactive multimedia attraction in 25 cities.^[17]

Windows Me was released for retail sale on September 14, 2000.^[7] At launch time, Microsoft announced a time-limited promotion from September 2000 to January 2001 which entitled Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE users to upgrade to Windows Me for $59.95 instead of the regular retail upgrade price of $109. Non-upgrade versions cost $209, the same as Windows 98 on its release.^[18] In October 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, which also included the ZIP folders, the Spider Solitaire game and Internet Explorer 6 by default, all while being based on the Windows NT kernel, which on XP was an evolution of the one in Windows 2000.

New and updated features

User interface

Windows Me featured the shell enhancements inherited from Windows 2000 such as personalized menus, customizable Windows Explorer toolbars, auto-complete in Windows Explorer address bar and Run box, Windows 2000 advanced file type association features, displaying comments in shortcuts as tooltips, extensible columns in Details view (IColumnProvider interface), icon overlays, integrated search pane in Windows Explorer, sort by name function for menus, Places bar in common dialogs for Open and Save, cascading Start menu special folders, some Plus! 95 and Plus! 98 themes, and updated graphics. The notification area in Windows Me and later supported 16-bit high color icons. The Multimedia control panel was also updated from Windows 98. Taskbar and Start Menu options allowed disabling of the drag and drop feature and could prevent moving or resizing the taskbar, which was easier for new users.

Hardware support improvements

• Faster boot times: Windows Me features numerous improvements for improving cold boot time, pre and post-logon boot times and time required for resuming from hibernation.^[19] Processing of real mode configuration files, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, is bypassed at startup and essential real mode drivers like HIMEM.SYS and SMARTDRV.EXE are embedded into IO.SYS.^[19] The registry is loaded only once; for efficient loading, the registry is split into three files instead of two (SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT), with the new file CLASSES.DAT containing the contents of the hive HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT required for boot loaded initially.^[19] Plug and Play device enumeration is more parallelized than in Windows 98.^[19] Boot time is not affected due to unavailability of a DHCP server or other network components.^[19] There are also optimizations to prevent boot slowdown due to BIOS POST operations.^[19]
• USB Human Interface Device Class: Generic support for 5-button mice is also included as standard^[20] and installing IntelliPoint allows reassigning the programmable buttons.^[21]
• Windows Image Acquisition: Windows Me introduced the Windows Image Acquisition API for a standardized method of allowing Windows applications to transparently and more easily communicate with image acquisition devices, such as digital cameras and scanners. WIA intended to improve the configuration and the user interface for interacting with scanners and such devices, (which were previously supported by the TWAIN standard) and simplify writing device drivers for developers. WIA also includes support for USB still image capture device classes such as scanners and cameras through the Picture Transfer Protocol.^[22]
• Improved power management and suspend/resume operations: The OEM version of Windows Me supports OS-controlled ACPI S4 sleep state^[23] (hibernation) and other power management features without manufacturer-supplied drivers.^[24]
• USB and FireWire support improvements: Windows Me is the only operating system in the Windows 9x series that includes generic drivers for USB mass storage devices^[25] and USB printers.^[26] Support for FireWire SBP-2 scanners and storage devices is also improved.^[27]
• The waveOut, DirectSound, and DirectShow APIs support non-PCM formats such as AC-3 or WMA over S/PDIF.^[28]

Digital media

• Windows Movie Maker: This utility is based on DirectShow and Windows Media technologies to provide Microsoft Windows computer systems with basic video capture and edit capabilities. It provides users with the ability to capture, edit, and re-encode media content into the Windows Media format, a tightly compressed format that requires a minimal amount of storage space on the computer’s hard disk when compared to many other media formats.^[29]
• Windows Media Player 7: The new version of the Windows multimedia player software introduces jukebox functionality featuring the Media Library, support for CD burning, an integrated media encoder, and the ability to transfer music directly to portable devices. Another new feature is its radio tuner that can be used to search for and connect to radio stations over the internet. Users can also customize the look and feel of the user interface through interactive skins.^[30] Windows Me can be upgraded to Windows Media Player 9 Series, which was later included in Windows XP SP2.
• Windows DVD Player: The software DVD player in Windows Me is a redesigned version of the one featured in Windows 98 which, unlike its predecessor, does not require a dedicated decoder card for DVD playback. Instead, it supports software decoding through a third-party decoder.^[31]

Networking technologies

• Net Crawler: Windows Me introduced a net crawling feature^[32] which automatically searches out and creates shortcuts to network shares and printers in My Network Places. This can be controlled using the Automatically search for network folders and printers option. Shortcuts that are added by the net crawler but not detected again on the network in a reasonable time period are aged out and deleted.
• New TCP/IP Stack: Windows Me includes the Windows 2000 networking stack and architecture.^[33]
• The Home Networking Wizard is designed to help users to set up a computer that is running Windows Me for use on a small home network. This includes setting up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) on a computer running Windows Me so the computer can share a connection to the Internet with other computers on the home network.
• Dial-up Networking component was updated in Windows Me and provides several enhancements while maintaining the desired features of prior releases of the operating system. The user interface had been reworked to provide all configurable parameters in one convenient location. The user interface now included three new tabs: Networking, Security and Dialing. To improve dial-up networking, Windows Me includes built-in support for the Connection Manager dial-up client. Using the Connection Manager Administration Kit (an optional networking component in Windows 2000 Server), network administrators can pre-configure and deploy dial-up networking connections, by means of a Connection Manager service profile, to Windows Me–based client machines.
• Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) version 5.0 for Windows Me was enhanced to provide programming interface parity with NDIS version 5.0 in Windows 2000. This means that the programming interfaces that the author of a network device driver uses are the same for both of these Windows platforms.
• Universal Plug and Play: Windows Me introduced support for Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). Universal Plug and Play and NAT traversal APIs can also be installed on Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE by installing the Windows XP Network Setup Wizard.^[34]

System utilities

• System Restore: Windows Me introduced the «System Restore» logging and reversion system, which was meant to simplify troubleshooting and solve problems. It was intended to work as a rollback and recovery feature so that if the installation of an application or a driver adversely affected the system, the user could undo the installation and return the system to a previously working state. It does this by monitoring changes to Windows system files and the registry. System Restore protects only the operating system files, not documents, and therefore is not a substitute for a backup program.
• System File Protection: First introduced with Windows 2000 (as Windows File Protection), and expanding on the capabilities introduced with System File Checker in Windows 98, System File Protection aimed to protect system files from modification and corruption silently and automatically. When the file protection is in effect, replacing or deleting a system file causes Windows Me to silently restore the original copy. The original is taken from a hard drive backup folder (%WinDir%\Options\Install) or from the Windows Me installation CD, if the cached copy of files on the hard disk has been deleted. If no installation CD is in the drive, a dialog box alerts the user about the problem and requests that the CD be inserted. System File Protection is a different technology from System Restore and should not be confused with the latter. System Restore maintains a broad set of changed files including added applications and user configuration data stored repeatedly at specific points in time restored by the user, whereas System File Protection protects operating system files with no user input.
• System Configuration Utility allows users to manually extract and restore individual system files from the Windows Me setup files. It has also been updated with three new tabs called «Static VxDs», «Environment» and «International». The Static VxDs tab allows users to enable or disable static virtual device drivers to be loaded at startup, the Environment tab allows users to enable or disable environment variables, and the International tab allows users to set international language keyboard layout settings that were formerly set via the real mode MS-DOS configuration files. A Cleanup button on the Startup tab allows cleaning up invalid or deleted startup entries.
• System Monitor has been updated with a Dial-Up Adapter section. Users can now monitor items such as Connection Speeds, Bytes Received or Transmitted / Second.
• SCANDISK runs from within Windows upon an improper shutdown before the Windows Shell loads.
• Automatic Updates: The Automatic Updates utility automatically downloads and installs critical updates from the Windows Update Web site with little user interaction. It is set up to check Windows Update once every 24 hours by default. Users can choose to download which update they want, although high-priority updates must be downloaded and installed.
• Compressed Folders: Windows Me includes native support for ZIP files through the ‘Compressed Folders’ Explorer extension. This extension was originally introduced in the Plus! 98 collection for Windows 98, but is included in the base operating system in Windows Me.
• A new Help and Support program has also been added, replacing the HTML Help-based documentation in Windows 2000 and Windows 98. The Help and Support Center is entirely HTML-based and takes advantage of a technology called Support Automation Framework (SAF), that can show support information from the internet, allows collecting data for troubleshooting via WMI and scripting and for third parties to plug into Windows Help and Support.^[35] Several other support tools also shipped with Windows Me.^[36]
• Windows Me also includes Internet Explorer 5.5, which supports a new Print Preview feature.^[37] It also shipped with the MSN Messenger Service.

Accessibility features

• On-Screen Keyboard: Originally introduced with Windows 2000, On-Screen Keyboard makes it possible to input characters using the mouse instead of the keyboard.
• The Mouse Control Panel incorporates IntelliPoint features, namely ClickLock (selecting or dragging without continuously holding down the mouse button), hiding the pointer while typing, and showing it by pressing Ctrl.
• The cursor (system caret) can be set to a thicker width.
• Increased Active Accessibility support in utilities such as Calculator and Magnifier.

Removed features

Real mode DOS

Windows Me restricted support for real mode MS-DOS. As a result, IO.SYS in Windows Me disregards CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.COM and WIN.COM and directly executes VMM32.VXD. In its default configuration the system would neither boot into an MS-DOS command prompt nor exit to DOS from Windows; real mode drivers such as ANSI.SYS could not be loaded and older applications that require real mode could not be run. Microsoft argued that the change improved the speed and reliability of the boot process.^[8][19]

In Windows Me, the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files are used only to set global environment variables. The two files (if present) are scanned for settings relating to the environment variables, and any other commands present are moved into a Windows registry key (see below). The two files thus contain only settings and preferences which configure the «global environment» for the computer during the boot phase or when starting a new virtual DOS machine (VDM).

To specify or edit other startup values (which, in Windows 98, would be present in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file) the user must edit the following Windows registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Environment

For troubleshooting and crash recovery, both the Windows Me CD-ROM and the Windows Me startup disk (a user-creatable floppy disk, known as the Emergency Boot Disk (EBD)) allowed booting into real mode MS-DOS.

It is possible to restore real mode DOS functionality through various unofficial means.^[38][39] Additionally, a registry setting exists that re-enables the «Restart in MS-DOS mode» option in the shutdown dialog box; however, unless patched unofficially with third-party software, Windows Me cannot be booted to MS-DOS real mode.^[40]

Other components

Unlike previous versions of Windows 9x, Windows Me was entirely aimed at home users, and thus had certain enterprise-oriented features removed. Several features of its predecessors did not work or were officially unsupported by Microsoft on Windows Me, including Automated Installation,^[41] Active Directory client services,^[42] System Policy Editor,^[43] Personal Web Server and ASP. These features were supported on its predecessors, Windows 98 and Windows 95.^[44] A Resource Kit publication, targeted towards system administrators, was never published for Windows Me.

Other features that were removed or never updated to work with Windows Me included Microsoft Fax,^[45] QuickView and DriveSpace, as well as the GUI FAT32 conversion tool.^[46] Several Windows Explorer commands were also modified in Windows Me, matching the menu structure in Windows 2000. While some were simply moved to a different location, certain functionality of the Go menu, as well as the Find command on the Tools menu, are no longer available. For the latter change Microsoft recommends using a variety of similar functionality labeled Search.^[47]

Windows Me, like Windows 98 Second Edition, did not ship with the WinG API or RealPlayer 4.0, unlike the original release of Windows 98, due to both of these having been superseded by DirectX and Windows Media Player, respectively.

Upgradeability

Windows Me could have its components upgraded or have new components installed up to the latest versions:

• Internet Explorer 6 SP1 and Outlook Express 6 SP1
• Windows Media Format Runtime and Windows Media Player 9 Series (including Windows Media Encoder 7.1 and the Windows Media 8 Decoding Utility)
• MSN Messenger 7.0
• Windows Installer 2.0
• DirectX 9.0c (the latest compatible runtime is from October 2007.)^[48]
• Microsoft .NET Framework up to and including version 2.0 (2.0 SP1 and higher versions are not supported.)
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 runtime
• Text Services Framework
• Several other components such as MSXML 3.0 SP7, Microsoft Agent 2.0, NetMeeting 3.01, MSAA 2.0, ActiveSync 3.8, WSH 5.6, Microsoft Data Access Components 2.81 SP1, WMI 1.5 and Speech API 4.0.
• Office XP is the last version of Microsoft Office that is compatible with Windows Me.^[49]
• The Microsoft Layer for Unicode can be installed to allow certain Unicode applications to run on the operating system.

System requirements

System requirements for running Windows Me^[50]

	Minimum	Recommended
x86
CPU	Pentium, 150 MHz	Pentium II, 300 MHz
Memory	32 MB	64 MB
Free space	320 MB	2 GB
Media	CD or DVD drive 3.5″ inch floppy drive
Display	VGA	SVGA Video capture device for Windows Movie Maker
Sound hardware	Sound card Speakers or headphones	Microphone for Windows Movie Maker
Network	None	56.6 Kbps modem or faster with current Internet connection
Input device(s)	Mouse or compatible pointing device

The /nm setup switch can be used at the DOS command line to bypass the minimum system requirement checks, allowing for installation on a CPU as low as the 16 MHz 80486SX.

Limitations

Windows Me is only designed to handle up to 512 MB of RAM without changes.^[51] Systems with larger RAM pools may lose stability; however, depending on the hardware and software configuration, it is sometimes possible to manually tweak the installation to continue working with somewhat larger amounts of RAM as well.^[51][52] The maximum amount of memory the operating system is designed to use is up to 1 GB of RAM. Systems with more than 1.5 GB of RAM may continuously reboot during startup.^[53]

Support lifecycle

Compared with other releases of Windows, Windows Me had a short shelf-life of just over a year. Windows 2000 and Windows Me were eventually succeeded by newer Microsoft operating systems: Windows Me by Windows XP Home Edition, and Windows 2000 Professional by Windows XP Professional. Windows XP is noteworthy that the first preview build of Windows XP (then codenamed «Whistler») was released to developers on July 13, 2000, two months before Windows Me’s general availability date.^[54]

Microsoft originally planned to end support for Windows Me on December 31, 2004.^[55] However, in order to give customers more time to migrate to newer Windows versions, particularly in developing or emerging markets, Microsoft decided to extend support until July 11, 2006.^[56] Microsoft ended support for Windows Me (and Windows 98) on this date because the company considered the operating system to be obsolete and prone to security risks, and recommended customers to upgrade to a newer version of Windows such as Windows XP for the latest security improvements.^[57]

Retail availability for Windows Me ended on December 31, 2003.^[58] The operating system is no longer available from Microsoft in any form (through MSDN or otherwise) due to the terms of Java-related settlements Microsoft made with Sun Microsystems.^[59]

The Windows Update website continued to be available after Windows Me’s end of support date, however, during 2011, Microsoft retired the Windows Update v4 website and removed the updates for Windows Me from its servers.^[60][61]

Support for Office XP on Windows Me ended on July 12, 2011, ending support for all versions of Office on Windows Me.

Microsoft announced in July 2019 that the Microsoft Internet Games services on Windows Me (and XP) would end on July 31, 2019.^[62]

Reception

Windows Me initially received generally positive reviews, with reviewers citing the operating system’s integrity protection (branded as «PC Health») and the new System Restore feature as steps forward for home users.^[63][64] Despite this, however, users’ real-world experience did not bear this out, with industry publications receiving myriad reports of problems with the «PC Health» systems, PCs refusing to shut down cleanly, and general stability problems.^[65][9]

As time went on, the reception became even more negative, to the point where it was heavily panned by users, mainly due to stability and bug problems. Because of its many bugs and glitches, Windows Me is now infamously viewed as one of the worst operating systems of all time, both in critical and retrospect, being unfavorably compared to its immediate predecessor and successor.^[66] A PC World article infamously dubbed Windows Me as «Mistake Edition» and placed it 4th in their «Worst Tech Products of All Time» feature in 2006. The article states:

«Shortly after Me appeared in late 2000, users reported problems installing it, getting it to run, getting it to work with other hardware or software, and getting it to stop running.»^[67]

Consequently, in response to these heavy criticisms, most home users ultimately opted to stick with its predecessor, Windows 98 Second Edition, for the remainder of Windows Me’s lifecycle until the release of Windows XP in 2001, while some moved over to Windows 2000 Professional despite the latter operating system being primarily marketed towards the high-end business and enterprise market at the time. In the Netherlands, Windows Me has been mockingly nicknamed «Windows Meer Ellende» (Dutch for «more suffering»).^{[68][better source needed]}

System Restore suffered from a bug in the date-stamping functionality that could cause System Restore to incorrectly date-stamp snapshots that were taken after September 8, 2001. This could prevent System Restore from locating these snapshots and cause the system restore process to fail. Microsoft released an update to fix this problem.^[69]

Byron Hinson and Julien Jay, writing for ActiveWin, took an appreciative look on the operating system. On the removal of real mode DOS support, they had noted «The removal of DOS has clearly made a difference in Windows Me in terms of stability (far less Blue screen of death are seen now) and booting speed has greatly increased.»^[70] In a recommendation of the operating system upgrade for users of Windows 95 and 98, they had stated «If Windows Me isn’t a revolutionary OS it’s clear that Microsoft has focused its efforts to make it more user-friendly, stable and packed full of multimedia options. The result is great and the enhancements added are really worth the wait.»^[71] The new features that Windows Me introduced were also praised and have since remained part of subsequent Windows versions.^[72]

Along with Windows 2000 from the Windows NT family, Windows Me was the last version of Windows that lacked product activation.^[73][74]

References

External links

• GUIdebook – Graphical User Interface gallery Archived December 15, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
• Interview with Nicolas Coudière, Chief Product Manager: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
• Windows Me home page: The official Windows Me home page from Wayback Machine
• Windows 9x Member Projects

Windows Me

Version of Microsoft Windows
OS family	Windows 9x
Version	4.90
Codename	Millennium
Architecture	x86
Latest build	4.90.3000A
Release date	2000-09-14
Support end	2006-07-11
Replaces
Windows 98
Replaced by
Windows XP

Windows Me or Windows Millennium Edition (codenamed Millennium), is an operating system developed by Microsoft which was released on 14 September 2000.^[1] It is the third and final major release of the Windows 9x operating system line, which succeeded Windows 98.

Even though it is still based on MS-DOS, it restricted access to real mode DOS in order to cut boot times down. It introduces a number of features and enhancements, particularly geared towards multimedia such as Windows Media Player 7.0, Windows Movie Maker, Internet Explorer 5.5 or improved support for scanners and digital cameras. The user experience has also been updated with improvements that were previously introduced in Windows 2000. It was replaced in October 2001 by Windows XP, the first consumer version to be based on Windows NT codebase. Mainstream support for Windows Me ended on 31 December 2003, and extended support was discontinued later on 11 July 2006—together with Windows 98.

Development[edit | edit source]

Windows Me was an interim release, which sprang into being during the development of Windows 2000. Originally, it was planned that Windows 98 would be the last Windows 9x-based release, until Microsoft announced in 1999 that they would produce one more version based on the 9x codebase. It was created as a stopgap release, to keep consumers satisfied while a consumer NT release was finalized. It was developed by a small team and rushed to market, in order to coincide more or less with the release of Windows 2000. It was essentially designed to look and feel very similar to Windows 2000, while also using the old 9x kernel.

Main changes[edit | edit source]

User interface[edit | edit source]

Many of the user interface elements inherited from Windows 2000 include the updated color scheme, personalized program menus which display the most frequently used programs, the ability to lock the taskbar which prevents it from being moved or resized (this feature was also in Windows Neptune build 5111), and having dedicated folders for music and videos alongside the My Pictures folder introduced with Windows 2000. Image thumbnails are now readily visible through enabling it in the View menu, showing previews of image files within Windows Explorer. This functionality was previously available in Windows 98, except more hidden as the option could only be enabled through the properties dialog of the directory and checking «Enable thumbnail view».

Other subtle changes include System Properties now displaying accurate CPU information just like Windows 2000 as well as faster hardware detection dialogs. The «illegal operation» dialog has been replaced with a more minimalist dialog when a program crashes, no longer providing detailed register dumps.

Applications and components[edit | edit source]

• ZIP archive support is now included by default, being previously introduced with Microsoft Plus! 98.
• Internet Explorer 5.5 was introduced alongside newer versions of Outlook Express and Address Book.
• MSN Internet Access has been updated with a new icon.
• Paint now asks to enlarge the canvas when a larger clipboard image is pasted.
• ScanDisk now runs when Windows starts up after an improper shutdown rather than during the boot sequence.
• System Configuration Utility (MSCONFIG) has been updated to version 2.0, sporting a button for System Restore and adding in three new tabs for enabling/disabling static VxDs, as well as tabs for Environment and International. The tab to edit CONFIG.SYS has been removed due to the changes with how the operating system handles MS-DOS.
• Windows Image Acquisition was introduced, allowing better communication for digital cameras and scanners.
• Windows NetMeeting 3.01 was introduced.
• Windows Movie Maker was first introduced, providing a default entry level video editor for users to record, convert, and edit videos.
• Windows Media Player 7 was introduced.
• Windows DVD Player was updated to support third party software-based decoders without the need for a dedicated decoder card.
• System Restore was first introduced. It has a bug where it cannot catalog and restore dates past 8 September 2001, which Microsoft has since released a bugfix for.^[2][3]
• System File Protection was introduced being renamed from its Windows 2000 counterpart as Windows File Protection.
• On-Screen Keyboard from Windows 2000 was introduced.
• DirectX 7.1 was introduced.
• Windows Installer 1.2 was introduced.

System requirements[edit | edit source]

According to Microsoft, Windows Me requires a Pentium 150 MHz processor, at least 32 MB of RAM, 320 MB of hard drive space (varies depending on components being installed), and a VGA or better display adapter.^[4] Windows 95 is now required to upgrade to Windows Me.

It is possible to bypass most of these requirements via the /nm parameter for SETUP.EXE. By doing so, it becomes possible to install Windows Me on a 486 processor with as low as 8 MB of RAM. Windows Me drops support for the 80386 processor.

Hardware compatibility[edit | edit source]

Windows Me does not support having more than 1 GB of RAM due to a bug in the memory allocator.^[5][6] Windows Me will often encounter system instability or crashing upon boot on these systems without additional fixes.

Reception[edit | edit source]

Upon initial release, Windows Me received generally favorable reviews with many of its new features getting praise from both critics and users — in succeeding years, it became the subject of heavy criticism for its poor performance and stability, which led many people to opt for Windows 2000 or continue using earlier 9x-based releases. One of many factors that caused the operating system to be negatively received was the rapidly aging Windows 9x kernel, and the way its memory management worked: both 16-bit and 32-bit apps ran on the same memory layer. If a single 16-bit process crashed, then the rest of the processes within that layer would have also crashed.

The removal of MS-DOS mode, which many users at the time largely relied on to run certain legacy applications, was also a subject of controversy. While DOS-based programs could still run in an MS-DOS prompt, the ability to use MS-DOS in real mode without Windows running was removed. Microsoft did this mainly to minimize I/O conflicts and decrease boot times. In spite of this, there have been unofficial patches and workarounds to restore DOS mode in Windows Me. One method is to use the emergency boot disk provided with the operating system to boot directly to a DOS prompt. Additionally through unofficial patches, modifying/editing certain system files such as IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM, REGENV32.EXE, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT will restore functionality to boot into DOS mode through the startup menu.^[7]

Despite its poor reception, some have reported overall positive experiences with the operating system, citing that it ran faster and was a substantial improvement over Windows 98.

List of known builds[edit | edit source]

Developer Release[edit | edit source]

Beta 1[edit | edit source]

Beta 2[edit | edit source]

Beta 2 Refresh[edit | edit source]

Beta 3[edit | edit source]

Release Candidate 0[edit | edit source]

Release Candidate 1[edit | edit source]

Release Candidate 2[edit | edit source]

RTM[edit | edit source]

February 2004 Security Update[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

Windows Millennium Edition , or Windows Me (marketed with the pronounciation of the pronoun,»me»),^[1] is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series.

Windows Me is the successor to Windows 98 and was targeted specifically at home PC users. It included Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows Media Player 7, and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy to use for home users. Microsoft also updated the graphical user interface, shell features, and Windows Explorer in Windows Me with some of those first introduced in Windows 2000, which had been released as a business-oriented operating system seven months earlier. Windows Me could be upgraded to Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (but not to SP2 (SV1) or Internet Explorer 7), Outlook Express 6 SP1 and Windows Media Player 9 Series. Microsoft .NET Framework up to and including version 2.0 is supported. However, versions 2.0 SP1, 3.x, and greater are not. Office XP was the last version of Microsoft Office to be compatible with Windows Me.

Windows Me is a continuation of the Windows 9x model, but with restricted access to real mode DOS in order to speed up system boot time. This was one of the most unpopular changes in Windows Me, because applications that needed real mode DOS to run, such as older disk utilities, did not run under Windows Me (although the system could be booted into real mode DOS using a bootable Windows Me floppy disk).

Windows Me received criticism for its various bugs and glitches. Compared with other releases of Windows, Windows Me had a short shelf-life of just over a year; it was soon replaced by Windows XP, which launched on October 25, 2001. Extended support for Me ended on July 11, 2006. As of September 2011, the Windows Update v4 servers were shut down, affecting all versions of the Windows 9x family by causing update attempts to be stuck in an endless loop. The Microsoft Update Catalog only retains legacy updates for Windows 2000 and subsequent NT-based software.

History[]

In 1998, Microsoft stated that there would be no version of Windows 9x after Windows 98. In May 1999, however, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, and then announced a new version of Windows 9x which was later revealed to be codenamed Millennium. In 2000, this was released as Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me).

At least three betas of Windows Me were available during its development phase. On September 24, 1999, Microsoft announced that Windows Millennium Beta 1 was released. Windows Millennium Beta 2 was released on November 24, 1999, and added a couple of new features such as System File Protection and Game Options Control Panel. Several interim builds were released between Beta 1 and 2, and added features such as automatic updates and personalized menus. Beta 3 was released on April 11, 2000. The general availability date was December 31, 2000. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows Millennium Edition on December 31, 2003. Extended support ended on July 11, 2006. Extended support for Windows 98 ended the same day. Windows Me also contained the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, which caused it and Windows 98 to be pulled from the Microsoft Developer Network at the end of 2003. At launch time, Microsoft announced a time-limited promotion from September 2000 to January 2001 which entitled Windows 95 or Windows 98 users to upgrade to Windows Me for $59.95 instead of the regular retail upgrade price of $109.

Shortly after Windows Me was released, Microsoft launched a campaign-initiative to promote Windows Me in the U.S., which they dubbed the Meet Me Tour. A national partnered promotional program featured Windows Me, OEMs and other partners in an interactive multimedia attraction in 25 cities across the U.S.

New and updated features[]

User interface[]

Windows Me featured shell enhancements inherited from Windows 2000, such as personalized menus, customizable Windows Explorer toolbars, auto-completion in the Windows Explorer address bar and Run box, Windows 2000 advanced file type association features, displaying comments in shortcuts as tooltips, extensible columns in Details view (IColumnProvider interface), icon overlays, integrated search pane in Windows Explorer, sort by name function for menus, Places bar in common dialogs for Open and Save, cascading Start menu special folders, some Plus! 95 and Plus! 98 themes, and updated graphics. The notification area in Windows Me and later supported 16-bit high color icons. The Multimedia control panel was also updated from Windows 98. Taskbar and Start Menu options allowed disabling of the drag and drop feature and could prevent moving or resizing the taskbar.

Hardware support improvements[]

• Faster boot times: Windows Me features numerous improvements for improving cold boot time, pre and post-logon boot times and time required for resuming from hibernation. Processing of the real mode configuration files config.sys and autoexec.bat is bypassed at startup and essential real mode drivers are moved to io.sys. The registry is loaded only once; only portions of the registry required for boot are loaded initially, and registry is split across three files instead of two for efficient loading. Plug and Play device enumeration is more parallelized than Windows 98. Boot time is not affected due to the unavailability of a DHCP server or other network components. There are also optimizations to prevent boot slowdown due to BIOS POST operations.
• Windows Image Acquisition: Windows Me introduced the Windows Image Acquisition API for a standardized method of allowing Windows applications to transparently and more easily communicate with image acquisition devices, such as digital cameras and scanners. WIA intended to improve the configuration and the user interface for interacting with scanners and such devices, (which were previously supported by the TWAIN standard) and simplify writing device drivers for developers. WIA also includes support for USB still image capture device classes such as scanners and cameras through the Picture Transfer Protocol.
• Improved power management and suspend/resume operations: The OEM version of Windows Me supports OS-controlled ACPI S4 sleep state (hibernation) and other power management features without manufacturer-supplied drivers.
• USB and FireWire support improvements: Windows Me is the only operating system in the Windows 9x series that includes generic drivers for USB mass storage devices and USB printers. Support for FireWire SBP-2 scanners and storage devices is also improved.
• The waveOut, DirectSound, and DirectShow APIs support non-PCM formats such as AC-3 or WMA over S/PDIF.

Digital media[]

• Windows Movie Maker: This utility is based on DirectShow and Windows Media technologies to provide Microsoft Windows computer systems with basic video capture and edit capabilities. It provides users with the ability to capture, edit, and re-encode media content into the Windows Media format, a tightly compressed format which requires a minimal amount of storage space on the computer’s hard disk, when compared to many other media formats.
• Windows Media Player 7 offers many new features and capabilities compared to previous versions, including the WindowsMedia.com guide and radio tuner which are an integral part of the player, as well as integrated jukebox and player capabilities, and interactive skins to allow consumers to personalize the look, feel, and operation of the player by changing the user interface.
• Windows DVD Player: Microsoft has included a redesigned version of their DVD player in Windows Me. Unlike the Windows 98 version, the new Windows Me version supports software decoding for playback of DVD movies without a dedicated decoder card.
• Image Preview: In Windows Me, images can be viewed by using the Image Preview utility. It allows users to rotate an image, printit, or zoom it in or out. Image Preview supports images with .BMP, .DIB, .EMF, .GIF, .JPEG, .PNG, .TIF and .WMF file formats. The My Pictures folder also integrates previewing images.
• Games: Windows Me includes version 7.1 of the DirectX API which introduced DirectPlay Voice, and also offers several new games: Internet Backgammon, Internet Checkers, Internet Hearts, Internet Reversi, and Internet Spades. It also includes Spider Solitaire from Plus! 98 and Pinball from Plus! for Windows 95. The final version of DirectX available for Windows Me is DirectX 9.0c, which was released on 7 April 2006.

Networking technologies[]

• Net Crawler: Windows Me introduced a net crawling feature which automatically searches out and creates shortcuts to network shares and printers in My Network Places. This can be controlled using the Automatically search for network folders and printers option. Shortcuts that are added by the net crawler but not detected again on the network in a reasonable time period are aged out and deleted.
• New TCP/IP Stack: Windows Me includes the Windows 2000 networking stack and architecture which was known to be more reliable, full-featured, stable and offered better performance. Support for networking over FireWire, improved infrared support, a network diagnostic troubleshooter and a new Home Networking wizard are also included.
• The Home Networking Wizard is designed to help users to set up a computer that is running Windows Me for use on a small home network. This includes setting up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) on a computer running Windows Me so the computer can share a connection to the Internet with other computers on the home network.
• Dial-up Networking was updated in Windows Me, and provides several enhancements while maintaining the desired features of prior releases of the operating system. The user interface had been reworked to provide all configurable parameters in one convenient location. The user interface now included three new tabs: Networking, Security and Dialing. To improve dial-up networking, Windows Me includes built-in support for the Connection Manager dial-up client. Using the Connection Manager Administration Kit (an optional networking component in Windows 2000 Server), network administrators can pre-configure and deploy dial-up networking connections, by means of a Connection Manager service profile, to Windows Me–based client machines.
• Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) NDIS version 5.0 for Windows Me was enhanced to provide programming interface parity with NDIS version 5.0 in Windows 2000. This means that the programming interfaces that the author of a network device driver uses are the same for both of these Windows platforms.
• Universal Plug and Play: Windows Me introduced support for Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). Universal Plug and Play and NAT traversal APIs can also be installed on Windows 98 by installing the Windows XP Network Setup Wizard.

System utilities[]

• System Restore: Windows Me introduced the «System Restore» logging and reversion system, which was meant to simplify troubleshooting and solve problems. It was intended to work as a rollback and recovery feature so that if the installation of an application or a driver adversely affected the system, the user could undo the installation and return the system to a previously working state. It does this by monitoring changes to Windows system files and the registry. System Restore protects only the operating system files, not documents, and therefore is not a substitute for a backup program. The System Restore feature sometimes ended up restoring malware which the user had previously removed, since its method of keeping track of changes is fairly simplistic. By disabling System Restore, the malware could be removed, but the user lost all saved restore points. System Restore also suffered from a bug in the date-stamping functionality that may cause System Restore to date-stamp snapshots that are taken after 8 September 2001 incorrectly. This can prevent System Restore from locating these snapshots and can cause the system restore process to fail. Microsoft released an update to fix this problem.
• System File Protection: First introduced with Windows 2000 (as Windows File Protection), and expanding on the capabilities introduced with System File Checker in Windows 98, System File Protection aimed to protect system files from modification and corruption silently and automatically. When the file protection is in effect, replacing or deleting a system file causes Windows Me to restore the original copy immediately and silently. The original is taken from a hard drive backup folder (%WinDir%\Options\Install) or from the Windows Me installation CD, if the cached copy of files on the hard disk has been deleted. If no installation CD is in the drive, a dialog box alerts the user about the problem and requests that the CD be inserted. System File Protection is a different technology from System Restore and should not be confused with the latter. System Restore maintains a broad set of changed files including added applications and user configuration data stored repeatedly at specific points in time restored by the user, whereas System File Protection protects operating system files with no user input.
• System Configuration Utility allows users to manually extract and restore individual system files from the Windows Me setup files. It has also been updated with three new tabs called «Static VxDs», «Environment» and «International». The Static VxDs tab allows users to enable or disable static virtual device drivers to be loaded at startup, the Environment tab allows users to enable or disable environment variables, and the International tab allows users to set international language keyboard layout settings that were formerly set via the real mode MS-DOS configuration files. A Cleanup button on the Startup tab allows cleaning up invalid or deleted startup entries.
• System Monitor has been updated with a Dial-Up Adapter section. Users can now monitor items such as Connection Speeds, Bytes Received or Transmitted / Second.
• SCANDISK runs from within Windows upon an improper shutdown before the Windows Shell loads.
• Automatic Updates: The Automatic Updates utility automatically downloads and installs critical updates from the Windows Update Web site with little user interaction. It is set up to check Windows Update once every 24 hours by default. Users can choose to download which update they want, although high-priority updates must be downloaded and installed.

• Compressed Folders: Windows Me includes support for ZIP files through a shell extension known as Compressed Folders. Originally introduced in the Plus! 98 pack for Windows 98, this feature allows users to create, access and extract files from ZIP archives similar to a regular folder in Windows. The user can also restrict access to files with a password.
• A new Help and Support program has also been added, replacing the HTML Help-based documentation in Windows 2000 and Windows 98. The Help and Support Center is entirely HTML-based and takes advantage of a technology called Support Automation Framework (SAF), that can show support information from the internet, allows collecting data for troubleshooting via WMI and scripting and for third parties to plug into Windows Help and Support. Several other support tools also shipped with Windows Me.
• Windows Me also includes Internet Explorer 5.5 which supports a new Print Preview feature. It also shipped with the MSN Messenger Service.

Accessibility features[]

• On-Screen Keyboard: Originally introduced with Windows 2000, a program called On-screen Keyboard has been added, which makes it possible to input characters using the mouse instead of the keyboard. This feature is useful for computers that use a tablet as the primary pointing device or for accessibility purposes.
• The Mouse Control Panel incorporates IntelliPoint features, namely, ClickLock (selecting or dragging without continuously holding down the mouse button), hiding the pointer while typing and showing it by pressing Ctrl.
• The cursor (system caret) can be set to a thicker width.
• Active Accessibility support in utilities such as Calculator and Magnifier has been improved.

Removed features[]

Real mode DOS[]

One of the most publicized changes from Windows 98 is that Windows Me does not include real mode DOS. According to Microsoft, with real mode support removed, Windows Me could potentially have faster reliable boot performance.

The Config.sys and autoexec.bat files are no longer read or executed during startup by io.sys. The command shell command.com is not executed and win.com is bypassed by direct execution of vmm32.vxd from io.sys. Because of these changes, the system can neither boot into an MS-DOS command prompt nor exit to DOS from Windows. Real mode drivers, such as ansi.sys cannot be loaded and older applications that require real mode do not run.

In Windows Me, the autoexec.bat and config.sys files are used only to set global environment variables. The two files (if present) are scanned for settings relating to the environment variables, and any other commands present are removed into a Windows registry key (see below). The two files thus contain only settings and preferences which configure the global environment for the computer during the boot phase or when starting a new MS-DOS virtual machine.

To specify or edit other startup values (which, in Windows 98, would be present in the autoexec.bat file) the user must edit the following Windows registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Environment

For troubleshooting and crash recovery, both the Windows Me CD-ROM and the Windows Me startup disk (a user-creatable floppy disk, known as the Emergency Boot Disk) allowed booting into real mode MS-DOS.

Other components[]

Windows Me was aimed exclusively at home users, whereas previous versions of Windows 9x were expected to be used in an enterprise business setting. Several features of its predecessors did not work or were officially unsupported by Microsoft on Windows Me, including Automated Installation, Active Directory client services, System Policy Editor, Personal Web Server and ASP. These features were supported on its predecessors, Windows 98 and Windows 95. A Resource Kit publication, targeted towards system administrators, was never published for Windows Me.

Other features removed or never updated to work with Windows Me included Microsoft Fax, QuickView and DriveSpace.

Criticism[]

Windows Me was heavily criticized by some users, mainly for stability issues. A PC World article dubbed Windows Me the «Mistake Edition» and placed it fourth in their «Worst Tech Products of All Time» feature. «Shortly after Me appeared in late 2000», the article states, «users reported problems installing it, getting it to run, getting it to work with other hardware or software, and getting it to stop running.»

Due to Windows Me’s poor reception, home users bought Windows 2000, despite it being a business-oriented operating system.

The System Restore feature sometimes ended up restoring malware which the user had previously removed, since its method of keeping track of changes is fairly simplistic. By disabling System Restore, the malware could be removed, but the user lost all saved restore points.

System Restore also suffered from a bug in the date-stamping functionality that may cause System Restore to date-stamp snapshots that are taken after 8 September 2001 incorrectly. This can prevent System Restore from locating these snapshots and can cause the system restore process to fail. Microsoft released an update to fix this problem.

Relation to other Windows releases[]

Windows Me was complemented by Windows 2000, which was aimed at power users and businesses. Both operating systems were succeeded by Windows XP with their features unified. All Windows Me support, including security updates and security related hotfixes, was terminated on July 11, 2006. Support for Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE was also terminated on that date. Microsoft ended support for these products because the company considers them obsolete and running these products can expose users to security risks.

Many third-party applications written for earlier editions of Microsoft Windows, especially older games, run under Windows Me but not under Windows 2000. This fact has become less relevant with the sharp decline in popularity of Windows Me after the release of Windows XP, which features a compatibility mode which allows many of these older applications to run.

If an installation CD-ROM from the Windows 2000 family is inserted into the drive of a computer running Windows Me, the user is prompted to upgrade to Windows 2000 because Windows Me has an older version number than Windows 2000. While this is not technically so (Windows Me was released several months after Windows 2000), Windows Me is in fact derived from the older, monolithic MS-DOS codebase (Windows 4.x) while Windows 2000 is the first of the NT 5.0 family, making the latter an upgrade.

Windows 2000 cannot, however, be upgraded to Windows Me. If an installation CD-ROM from Windows Me is inserted while running Windows 2000, the user will receive an error message that Setup cannot run from within Windows 2000. The user is prompted to shut down Windows 2000, restart the computer using Windows 95 or 98, or start MS-DOS and then run Setup from the MS-DOS command prompt.

Windows XP, which is NT-based, became the successor to Windows Me. It also closed the gap between consumer Windows and Windows NT. In addition, no service packs for Windows Me were released.

Along with Windows 2000 from the NT family, Windows Me was the last version of Windows that lacked product activation.

Windows Me was the last operating system to be based on the Windows 9x (monolithic) kernel and MS-DOS.

System requirements[]

Minimum system specifications[]

• Processor: Pentium 150 MHz
• Hard drive space: 320 MB
• RAM: 32 MB

Recommended system specifications[]

• Processor: Pentium II 300 MHz
• Hard drive space: 2 GB
• RAM: 64 MB

Physical RAM limit[]

The maximum amount of physical RAM in a PC that Windows Me supports is 1.5 GB.

References[]

External links[]

• GUIdebook — Graphical User Interface gallery
• Interview with Nicolas Coudière, Chief Product Manager: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
• Windows Me home page: The official Windows Me home page from the internet archives
• Windows 9x Member Projects: The Windows 9x Member Projects
• Windows Me at Wikipedia

	Wikipedia (article: Windows Me ) This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).

Microsoft Windows family
Versions • Components • History
Original
DOS-based
Windows 1.0 • Windows 2.0 • Windows 2.1 (Windows/286 • Windows/386) • Windows 3.0 • Windows 3.1
Windows 9x
Windows 95 • Windows 98 • Windows Me
Windows NT
Early versions
Windows NT 3.1 • Windows NT 3.5 • Windows NT 3.51 • Windows NT 4.0 • Windows 2000
Client
Windows XP (development) • Windows Vista (editions • development) • Windows 7 (editions • development) • Windows 8 • Windows 10 • Windows 11
Windows Server
Server 2003 • Server 2008 (2008 R2) • HPC Server 2008 • Home Server • Small Business Server • Essential Business Server • Windows Server 2012 • Windows Server 2016 • Windows Server 2019 • Windows Server 2022
Specialized
Windows Embedded • Windows PE • Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
Mobile
Windows Mobile • Windows Phone
Cancelled
Cairo • Nashville • Neptune • Odyssey • Windows 10X
Related
Metro • Midori • OS/2 • Windows Aero • Windows Setup • Windows XP themes • Microsoft Plus!

Год выпуска: 2000
Разработчик: Microsoft
Платформа: Windows x86
Совместимость с Vista: полная
Системные требования: Pentium-266, RAM 64 Мb, 1Gb HDD
Язык интерфейса: только русский
Таблэтка: Присутствует

Описание: Windows Millennium Edition, также известная как Windows Me — смешанная 16/32-разрядная операционная система с графическим интерфейсом, выпущенная корпорацией Microsoft 14 сентября 2000 года. Была названа в честь нового III тысячелетия.
От своих предшественниц — Windows 98 и Windows 95 — новая система отличается относительно небольшими обновлениями, такими как новый Internet Explorer 5.5, и Windows Media Player версии 7. Появился также Movie Maker с базовыми функциями редактирования цифрового видео. Изменился интерфейс системы — в него были добавлены возможности, впервые появившиеся в Windows 2000.
Одно из наиболее заметных изменений в Windows Me — в стандартной конфигурации системы отсутствует реальный режим MS-DOS, из-за чего нельзя пользоваться программами, требующими его. Однако с помощью специальных утилит эту функцию можно добавить. По сути же загрузка Windows Me ничем не отличается от аналогичного процесса Windows 95 и 98.

Доп. информация: Основные нововведения:
Восстановление системы (System restore).
Предоставляет возможность отката системы в предыдущее работоспособное состояние. Технически это выглядит так: по некоторым событиям система создаёт «точки восстановления», в которые записывает реестр, и затем следит за изменениями в определённом наборе файлов и в случае перезаписи их другими сохраняет в точках восстановления старые версии.
Защита системных файлов (Windows File Protection).
Не позволяет перезаписывать довольно значительное множество системных и других файлов никогда, кроме случаев установки обновлений. Призвана решить проблему DLL hell.
Автоматическое обновление с веб-узла Windows Update (обновление с сервера WSUS не поддерживается).
Распознает съёмные устройства USB,Firewire и т. д. и позволяет их безопасно извлекать
(в Windows 98 это надо было делать через Device manager или с помощью сторонних утилит)
Справочная система в стиле Windows XP
локальная справка + поиск в KB на сайте Microsoft
Неиспользуемые пункты меню «Пуск» автоматически «прячутся»
Поддержка нового оборудования
В базу драйверов добавлены драйвера для новых (со времён выхода Windows 98) устройств — пятикнопочная мышь, веб-клавиатура, широкополосные USB-модемы и т. п.
Новые возможности по настройке сети.
Поддержка новых технологий подключения: ADSL и кабельные модемы
Общий доступ к подключению интернета
компьютер может работать в качестве простого маршрутизатора с поддержкой NAT и автодозвона.
Мастер домашней сети.
Вспомогательная программа для простой настройки сети с типовой конфигурацией.
Поддержка устройств UPnP.
Internet Explorer 5.5 и Windows Media Player 7

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