is there a way to update windows me now adays?

[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...