is there a way to update windows me now adays?

[drivers]

if so, how?

[Geek-9pm]

MS dropped Windows ME some time ago. Even XP is now dated.
What band of computer? Did ME come with it?
What at the memory and CPU specs?

[drivers]

compaq presario, yes it came with windows me, 750mhz amd duron, came with 64mb ram but currently have 448 installed, ive used windows xp on it as well but obviously computer works alot  better with windows me, i know ms dropped support for it, but i was just asking if its possible to get those updates elsewhere

[BC_Programmer]

i know ms dropped support for it, but i was just asking if its possible to get those updates elsewhere

If MS didn't make the updates, they don't exist...


There is, however, something akin to the Unofficial Windows 98 Service Pack, which rolls up hotfixes that wouldn't normally have been pushed through windows Update.

You can find this here. This is the forum topic for it[/url]. Use at your own risk, and all that stuff.

[drivers]

If MS didn't make the updates, they don't exist...


There is, however, something akin to the Unofficial Windows 98 Service Pack, which rolls up hotfixes that wouldn't normally have been pushed through windows Update.

You can find this here. This is the forum topic for it[/url]. Use at your own risk, and all that stuff.

thanks, what about linux, what linux distro would be good for that computer with those specs?, im just trying to make this computer useable since it still runs as good as when i first got it 11 years ago lol, if worst comes to worse  ill put xp back on it, im just trying to find an os that doesn't slow down its performance

[Geek-9pm]

This may be of interest. It looks OK.
http://download.cnet.com/Microsoft-Windows-ME-Update/3000-18513_4-35743.html
However, when you try to download, nothing happens.

Publisher's Description
From Microsoft:
Microsoft has issued a software patch for what it calls a critical security flaw in its Windows Millennium Edition operating system, according to the company's home page.

There are other places that claim to have ME updates.

[DaveLembke]

Duron was a very low end CPU. If it were a Pentium III or even an Athlon it would run better for more modern OS. With my experience with older same era CPU's XP will run nice on them until you add service packs and the over 100 updates. I have a Pentium III 600Mhz Laptop that I run at Windows XP Pro SP2 with 384MB Ram and it runs at a good speed at that. If I install SP3 and all updates it slows to a crawl. So I no longer use this laptop for anything that has to be secure or personal since I cant patch it to latest and have it still be a computer that is enjoyable to work with.

I tried a number of Linux Distros on the Pentium III 600Mhz with 384MB Ram and the biggest issue I found was that many of the modern distros call for 512MB Ram minimum with 1GB recommended such as Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, etc. For a short while I ran my laptop on Fedora 5 and it ran at a good pace, but Fedora is now at version 17.

So my laptop no longer can run a modern GUI OS that is patched to the latest and still enjoyable, so I now use it as a beater to program on offline since Windows XP Pro SP2 still allows support for many modern apps which are no longer supported under the original Windows 98SE OS that my laptop originally came with.

*Personally Windows Me was one of the worst OS MS ever made. If you could find an Athlon CPU to upgrade to you would get better performance. You might be able to find one for less than $20 that would install into your system. Knowing what you have for a motherboard would help know what CPU's are compatible. Some boards you have to stick with the same CPU speed, so 750Mhz Athlon is the best choice, however if your motherboard supports faster, I'd go with the fastest available for your money if you want to invest in this computer vs retiring it. I had a eMachine once that was a 2.0Ghz Celeron, and the motherboard would not take a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4. I ended up having to stuff a 2.0Ghz Pentium 4 into it to squeeze out as much performance as I could out of it as for there was no BIOS flash to support any faster socket 478 CPUs. This eMachine was engineered with Planned Obsolescence in mind to install a motherboard that will only take 2.0Ghz socket 478 CPU's! I'd go with Windows XP, Athlon CPU 750Mhz or better if motherboard supports faster, get your Ram count to max of 512MB, unless your shared video is dropping you to the 448MB now, in which adding a video card can free up this Ram back to 512MB even if using a PCI graphics adapter if a AGP slot is unavailable. However if you dont already have the OS and hardware already, with excpetion to a $20 CPU upgrade you might be looking at wanting to invest the money into a new Motherboard, Ram, etc or completely new PC for like $349 for a low end new PC which would process way faster and be Windows 7 and more secure than a dated OS. Also if you want to play video games you will want to stick with Windows! I got games to run thru WINE, but they act up.

[DaveLembke]

Here is a comparison of the Duron vs Athlon 750 Mhz. My friend had a Duron 800Mhz 4 years ago and he was able to go with a 900Mhz Athlon in his motherboard. Performance increase was like night and day. Unreal Tournament 99 use to be choppy with the Duron 800Mhz, and the game was no longer choppy at 900Mhz Athlon. The extra L2 Cache is important for games.

[year+ old attachment deleted by admin]

[drivers]

Duron was a very low end CPU. If it were a Pentium III or even an Athlon it would run better for more modern OS. With my experience with older same era CPU's XP will run nice on them until you add service packs and the over 100 updates. I have a Pentium III 600Mhz Laptop that I run at Windows XP Pro SP2 with 384MB Ram and it runs at a good speed at that. If I install SP3 and all updates it slows to a crawl. So I no longer use this laptop for anything that has to be secure or personal since I cant patch it to latest and have it still be a computer that is enjoyable to work with.

I tried a number of Linux Distros on the Pentium III 600Mhz with 384MB Ram and the biggest issue I found was that many of the modern distros call for 512MB Ram minimum with 1GB recommended such as Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, etc. For a short while I ran my laptop on Fedora 5 and it ran at a good pace, but Fedora is now at version 17.

So my laptop no longer can run a modern GUI OS that is patched to the latest and still enjoyable, so I now use it as a beater to program on offline since Windows XP Pro SP2 still allows support for many modern apps which are no longer supported under the original Windows 98SE OS that my laptop originally came with.

*Personally Windows Me was one of the worst OS MS ever made. If you could find an Athlon CPU to upgrade to you would get better performance. You might be able to find one for less than $20 that would install into your system. Knowing what you have for a motherboard would help know what CPU's are compatible. Some boards you have to stick with the same CPU speed, so 750Mhz Athlon is the best choice, however if your motherboard supports faster, I'd go with the fastest available for your money if you want to invest in this computer vs retiring it. I had a eMachine once that was a 2.0Ghz Celeron, and the motherboard would not take a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4. I ended up having to stuff a 2.0Ghz Pentium 4 into it to squeeze out as much performance as I could out of it as for there was no BIOS flash to support any faster socket 478 CPUs. This eMachine was engineered with Planned Obsolescence in mind to install a motherboard that will only take 2.0Ghz socket 478 CPU's! I'd go with Windows XP, Athlon CPU 750Mhz or better if motherboard supports faster, get your Ram count to max of 512MB, unless your shared video is dropping you to the 448MB now, in which adding a video card can free up this Ram back to 512MB even if using a PCI graphics adapter if a AGP slot is unavailable. However if you dont already have the OS and hardware already, with excpetion to a $20 CPU upgrade you might be looking at wanting to invest the money into a new Motherboard, Ram, etc or completely new PC for like $349 for a low end new PC which would process way faster and be Windows 7 and more secure than a dated OS. Also if you want to play video games you will want to stick with Windows! I got games to run thru WINE, but they act up.

im not really looking to put anymore money into this machine, the tower/monitor/mouse/keyboard as a set is prob not even worth 20 bucks, i already have a windows 7 laptop which i bought last year so its not like im trying to use the old machine as a main one, was just looking for a way to boost up performance, only game i play is warcraft 3 and i feel with windows me the game runs better due to the os being lighter than xp but obviously the os is obsolete which i also wanted it for some internet use but cant get a newer browser, best thing ive done with it is install firefox 2.0 and i can browse most sites, but i cant install flash/java among other things , which requires a newer browser

[Geek-9pm]

If you don't want to pay any money...
The is nothing you can do...
..except speeding a lot of time trying to sharpen an old pencil. 

[drivers]

i was just asking if the things i were asking were possible, i also said i can always go back to xp, just seeing if i had other options thats all, putting any money in an 11 year old pc is not really smart or worth it, with that said, i pretty much got the answers i was looking for, thanks for your help

[Salmon Trout]

Duron was a very low end CPU. If it were a Pentium III or even an Athlon it would run better

The Duron was an AMD single core CPU which was basically an Athlon with less cache, in fact many Duron models were reject Athlons where the processor core was OK but the cache failed. Duron was often a favorite of computer builders looking for performance while on a tight budget. They were very overclockable. Benchmarks showed that for many tasks a 750 MHz Duron could trash a 1000 MHz Pentium III. They were by no means "low end". In 2002 I had a 750 Duron system with 512 MB RAM and it ran XP pretty well.
 

[patio]

I'd get a copy of Win2K...add some RAM if doable and move on...

[comda]

i Agree with Patio. I personally still have an old AMD duron running at 900MHZ and 512 mB ram running XP home SP2, with a 20GB drive. for a 12-13 year old PC its still VERY good. i have it running for my brother as a school PC. and yet the sad thing is. With the same graphics card, and memory it plays games better then my OLD P4 at 1.6Ghz. when i got the P4 i simply but the 64mb graphics card from the AMD duron into the P4 and it ran *censored* gta vc and GTA SA while the old DURON still puffs like new. XP will work fine with it, but since your a little low on RAm, definitely find a retail version of windows 2000 on ebay or from a computer store.. if your lucky some old ones still have a few copies lying around, i was lucky to get XP home that way lol, and install that. Far more stable then windows me and flash is still supported on it as i have it installed on my other PC at work. good luck. 

[easeltine1]

Go to this website for Windows ME updates. - http://erpman1.tripod.com/w9xmeupd.html
Install KernelEx 4.52, and read about this on KernelEx Wiki, Sourceforge.
A computer like the one you have can run Windows 2000 or Windows XP.  The problem is that the experience is just too slow for me.
With KernelEx 4.52, one can install programs that normally you need Windows 2000 + for, especially, Internet Browsers.
One can install Flash Player 11 on Windows ME w/ KernelEx and you are able to watch YouTube videos with the specifications of the computer you are talking about.  My Inspiron 8000/800 Mhz, Pentium III, (a bit better than a Duron), w/ 256 MB of RAM is able to connect to the Internet rather well and is very usable!
Firefox 3-10, Opera 11-12, SeaMonkey 2.0, SlimBrowser 5, (2014 version), Songbird, Flock, and even Nightingale, (2014-though quirky, good YouTube clips), and Flash Player 11, work very well with Windows ME.

I know, (don't think so, I know so), that one will have a better experience keeping Windows ME on this computer rather than trying to upgrade it to either Windows 2000/XP or a Linux version.   

[Salmon Trout]

Pentium III, (a bit better than a Duron)

For many tasks a 750 MHz Duron could trash a 1000 MHz Pentium III.

[patio]

easeltine1...

Any reason your strollin around bumping Old Topics ? ?...just curious.

[easeltine1]

Hi Salmon,

I am an AMD advocate myself.  The reason I stated my opinion that the Intel Pentium III was a bit better than an AMD Duron has to do with the amount of cache used in the AMD Duron as opposed to the AMD Athlon.  The AMD Duron was a cheaper alternative to the Intel Pentium III & AMD Athlon to compete with the Intel Celeron, (also cheaper, less cache).

That is why I said that the Pentium III, all w/ 256 kb or 512 kb L2 Cache is a bit better than a Duron, and I think that an Athlon is better.

[patio]

But you didn't answer my question...

[Salmon Trout]

I don't really like it when people start talking about certain CPUs being "better" than others; it make them sound like 14 year olds comparing hardware. The Duron was no slouch.

[easeltine1]

Hi Patio,

This is my first day here.

The question of the original poster was, "Is there a way to update Windows ME nowadays?"

The answers, (except for BC's), did not answer the original question satisfactorily to anyone with an older computer that doesn't want to spend more money on it.   I felt a need to give an alternative to the question, giving a person "Computer Hope" for an older computer getting as much as they can out of an older, maligned Operating System.

[easeltine1]

 http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/102/AMD_Duron_750_MHz_%28D750AST1B%29_vs_Intel_Pentium_III_800_MHz_%2880526PY800256%29.html

Duron 750 vs. Pentium III..."a bit better is a bit better"

[Salmon Trout]

Yeah, I saw that page, but I prefer my one, which supports my argument better.

[easeltine1]

Salmon, I certainly agree with the point that there was hardly any difference between the Pentium III and Duron, therefore, making the Duron a MUCH better value for the money.

A person gave me that Dell Inspiron 8000, Pentium III that had been upgraded from Windows ME to 2000 PRO. 

I hated the way it ran!  Since I have gone back to Windows ME, the Operating System that the computer started with, the performance drastically increased, and with KernelEx I can surf the Internet almost as fast as a modern computer.   That Windows 2000 takes forever to start on a computers like these!

My main laptop computer that we use is an AMD Duo Core, and I have always liked AMD CPU's...like doubling my dad's Pentium 166 Mhz to an AMD 333 Mhz. 

[Salmon Trout]

In 2001 I built a system with a 750 Duron using an Abit kt7a board, the idea was that after a few months I could replace the CPU with something more powerful. About 6 months later I got an Athlon XP 1800+ (which actually ran at 1533 MHz), a Palomino core, and straight away I had to buy a new PSU, the cheapo one that came with the case was not up to the job. I sold the Duron to a friend whose sister was running an Athlon system.

[Geek-9pm]

Also, I agree with Patio. Windows 2000 was supported up to SP-4 and still works good. Many programs will  run on it. 

[BC_Programmer]

A person gave me that Dell Inspiron 8000, Pentium III that had been upgraded from Windows ME to 2000 PRO. 

I hated the way it ran!  Since I have gone back to Windows ME, the Operating System that the computer started with

Windows ME was an Option. The default Install was Windows 2000. Performance also suffers heavily when the proper drivers are not installed, which is often the case.

[DaveLembke]

Windows 2000 Professional SP4 ran well if it was a clean install on specs like your system. I almost wonder if you were given it with a troubled OS from the prior owner adding/removing programs with dirty uninstallers as well as the chance that maybe it had some malware on it to lag it out even further.

I still have my Windows 2000 Pro SP4 slipstream that I made, although i haven't used it in years. My push to leave Win2k was that ZoneAlarm Firewall that I had been using with it for years all of a sudden released an update that severed support for Windows 2000, and so you had to be running Windows XP to use their Firewall. But with Windows XP coming with a pretty good firewall, I parted from using Zone Alarm for many years.

As far as Windows Me goes, Microsoft dropped support for updates a long long time ago. Others online have asked for years where they can get the updates to bring Windows Me patched all the way forward to the very last update. I have only seen unofficial sites out there offering updates. * These  could be dirty updates with Trojans etc. On an old 80GB Maxtor external drive I think I still have some updates for Windows Me back when I had to support people in the days when most had dial-up and any download was a lengthy process. My employer at the time had DSL and so I'd perform all my security downloads and then burn them to a 650MB CD and then add that to my CD binder that had other tools in there. I may still have updates for Windows 95 all the way to Vista in that binder, and I kept an exact copy of them on my 80GB Maxtor in case a CD got lost etc. That binder is in storage, but I might be able to dig out the 80GB Maxtor and see if I have any Windows Me security update patches available to share if interested. However Windows Me is still a soft target and I would not advise using it for anything important like banking and credit card transactions etc. Also you are very limited in what modern software might actually run on it. Windows 2000 Pro SP4 has better software support, although as I stated earlier you may find that even software you want wont run on Windows 2000 SP4 either as Zone Alarm decided to do with 2000 which ended my use of Windows 2000 since I needed a firewall that I could trust.

I tried using Norton System Works 2003 as a replacement to Zone Alarm, but Norton was a resource hog and slowed everything to a crawl.

If you have 192MB RAM or more Windows 2000 SP4 should run just fine on a Pentium III, however Windows 2000 SP4 on just 128MB RAM causes for lots of paging and so the system slows and you see lots of HDD activity. I have gotten Windows 2000 SP0 to run on just 64MB RAM although it crawls. SP3 and SP4 are resource intensive and you start to see a slow down if you dont have enough memory. If you have patience to wait for programs to load etc, it can run on just 128MB RAM.

Windows Me was slightly less memory intensive than 2000 Pro, and so if your running on a low RAM count this is probably where you see the performance difference if the original 2000 Pro build was clean when given to you.

What do you have for memory in this Pentium III system?

[patio]

Hi Patio,

This is my first day here.

The question of the original poster was, "Is there a way to update Windows ME nowadays?"

The answers, (except for BC's), did not answer the original question satisfactorily to anyone with an older computer that doesn't want to spend more money on it.   I felt a need to give an alternative to the question, giving a person "Computer Hope" for an older computer getting as much as they can out of an older, maligned Operating System.

I was merely pointing out that he hasn't been back in over 2 years...

As to a sluggish Win2K i never ever experienced that at all...installed to many different platforms.
In my mind one of MS's cleanest OS's ever released.

[easeltine1]

*  This particular Inspiron 8000 has a license on it of Millennium Edition.

*  The Inspiron 8000 was updated by the owner paying IT Professionals to put Windows 2000 PRO on it for his business.  You are both correct, the install job had some issues, the drivers were not correct.

*  The Inspiron Specs are Pentium III, (Salmon, I think it actually is the 800 Mhz. Pentium III), 250 MB RAM.  The Start-up seemed a little slow on this computer w/ Windows 2000.  Windows ME was built to have a very fast start-up time.  In my way of thinking, the major blunder of Microsoft was that ME is a FAT that does not run DOS programs well.  That was pretty stupid!  Also, one cannot use a Partition Program with it.  Those aspects I hate.

*  My Windows 2000 PRO works VERY well on my Dell OptiPlex GX620, 3 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, my Kubuntu Linux Box, running it through the VirtualBox delegating it 512 MB RAM.  It runs there better than any computer I have ever seen it run on.  It ran super fast when I gave it 730 MB RAM, but it was crashing, due to there not being enough RAM for Kubuntu.  Ok...here it comes...all the modern Operating Systems are a bunch of Memory Hogs and Bloatware...

[BC_Programmer]

Ok...here it comes...all the modern Operating Systems are a bunch of Memory Hogs and Bloatware...

Yeah, I know. I mean, the Windows ME CD has 510MB of Data, whereas MS-DOS 6 is 4.2MB! What a piece of bloatware ME Must be.

[patio]

Win2K until Win7 came out was one of the most memory efficent OS's to date...
You are losing credibility here the farther you run with this IMHO...

[easeltine1]

...well...today I bought 512 MB of RAM from the commies in Hong Kong for $6.90 for my Inspiron 8000, and will upgrade to Windows 2000....

[drivers]

I was merely pointing out that he hasn't been back in over 2 years...

As to a sluggish Win2K i never ever experienced that at all...installed to many different platforms.
In my mind one of MS's cleanest OS's ever released.

hi hi, I still read the forums from time to time, was surprised to see the thread at the top. as far as my pc goes, i have both windows me and xp installed