Windows Millennium Edition

Windows Millennium Edition

- is a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit graphical operating system released on 14 September 2000 by Microsoft.

- Windows Me

- Windows Me was the successor to Windows 98

- 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 for home users

- Microsoft also updated the graphical user interface and the 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, 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 9x.

- Windows Me is a continuation of the Windows 9x model, but with access to real mode MS-DOS restricted in order to speed up system boot time.

- This was one of the most publicized changes in Windows Me, because applications that needed real mode DOS to run, such as older disk utilities, did not run under Windows Me.

- Compared with other releases of Windows, Windows Me had a short shelf-life of just over a year; it was soon replaced by the Windows NT-based Windows XP, which was launched on 25 October 2001.

History

In 1997

"Millennium" was the codename for a future version of Windows NT that was expected to be released in 2000 or 2001

In 1998

Microsoft stated that there would be no version of Windows 9x after Windows 98

In 1999

Microsoft announced a new version of Windows 9x, that was later revealed to be codenamed Millennium

In 2000

History

this was released as Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me)

3 betas of Windows Me

•Millennium Beta 1

During September 24, 1999, Microsoft announced that Millennium Beta 1 was released.

•Millennium Beta 2

was released on 24 November 1999, and added a couple of new features such as System File Protection and Game Options Control Panel

•Millennium Beta 3

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 11 April 2000. The general availability date was 31 December 2000

History

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows Millennium Edition on 31 December 2003. Extended support ended on 11 July 2006. Windows 98 Extended support 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.

New and updated features

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.

New and updated features

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 immediately and 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.

New and updated features

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.

New and updated features

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.

Other

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 that they want, although high-priority updates must be downloaded and installed.

Windows Me operating system box cover shot

•Improved power management and suspend/resume operations:

Windows Me features significant improvements for improving cold boot time, pre and post-logon boot times and time required for resuming from hibernation.[ It also supports OS-controlled ACPI S4 sleep state (hibernation) and other power management features without manufacturer-supplied drivers.

•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.

•On-Screen Keyboard:

Originally introduced with Windows 3.1, 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.

•Help and Support

program has also been added, replacing Windows Help in Windows 2000 and Windows 98. The Help and Support Center is HTML-based, and takes advantage of a technology called Support Automation Framework (SAF). Several other support tools also shipped with Windows Me.

•USB mass storage drivers: Windows Me is the only operating system in the Windows 9x series that includes generic drivers for USB mass storage devices.

Removed features

Real mode DOS

One of the most publicized changes in Windows Me was that it no longer included real mode MS-DOS. With real-mode support removed, Windows Me can boot up a couple of seconds faster, without loss of Windows functionality. Autoexec.bat and Config.sys are no longer executed during startup by IO.SYS, and the system cannot boot to a MS-DOS command prompt or exit to DOS when Windows has booted. Because of this, applications that needed real mode DOS to run, such as older disk utilities, did not run under Windows Me. Additionally, real-mode drivers (one of which was ANSI.SYS) can no longer be loaded in Autoexec.bat or Config.sys. Additionally, win.com was no longer executed during the startup process; instead it went directly to execute VMM32.VXD from IO.SYS.

In Windows 98, the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files were used to set global environment variables. In Windows Me, these files are scanned for changes to environment variables that must be imported because the files contain various settings and preferences that configure the "global environment" for the computer during the boot phase and when you start a new MS-DOS Virtual Machine (VM). To specify or edit values in the autoexec.bat, the user must edit the following registry value:

Removed features

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Environment

Removed features

Windows Me was the last version of Windows to include a real-mode MS-DOS subsystem, although access to it was restricted. The Windows Me CD-ROM and startup disk allowed booting to real-mode MS-DOS.

A third-party patch was made to put real-mode DOS back into the Windows Me environment. It works by modifying three files, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM and REGENV32.EXE, thereby providing users with a boot process like that of previous versions of Windows 9x.

Other components

Several features of its predecessors did not work or were officially unsupported by Microsoft on Windows Me such as Automated Installation, Active Directory client services, System Policy Editor, Microsoft Fax, , QuickView and DriveSpace. Personal Web Server and ASP are not supported on Windows Me since it was aimed exclusively at home users. However, its predecessors, Windows 98 and Windows 95 could run Personal Web Server.

Unlike other Microsoft Windows releases at the time, Microsoft never published a Resource Kit for Windows Me.

System Requirements

Minimum system specifications

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

Recommended system specifications

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

Relation to other Windows releases

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

Relation to other Windows releases(continuation)

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.

Relation to other Windows releases(continuation)

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 which lacks Windows Product Activation.

Criticism

Windows Me was criticized by users for its instability and unreliability, due to frequent freezes and crashes. A PC World article dubbed Windows Me the "Mistake Edition" and placed it 4th 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."

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 has released an update to fix this problem.

First run

Empty desktop

Office application - notepad

Text Editor