Under the hood 

Certainly the removal of legacy DOS code, and the aforementioned restrictions to REAL mode come into play here, but there is more. New Wizards streamline the process of installing scanners and digital cameras, even more robust USB peripheral support is in place, including support for USB 2.0. Better integrated firewire device support, and a streamlined and rewritten Windows Driver Model core are all present and accounted for. The revamped WDM core seems to help with WDM driver compatibility between Windows 2000 WDM drivers, and Windows ME. 

A new Home Networking Wizard better integrates the functionality of Internet Connection Sharing (present in Win98SE) whilst fixing a few ICS problems. The Home networking wizard is easy and intuitive, and makes setting up a home network much simpler for the novice.

The overall focus of these changes is of course to increase ease-of-use, and decrease problems. Insofar as the core of the operating system is concerned, I would have to say that the changes are significant. Windows ME seems to be more stable and "tolerant" than Windows 98SE on my machines here (Athlon @ 787mhz/Asus K7M, Celeron 366@550/Abit BH6). 

The Celeron box hasn't needed a reboot in weeks although it gets much less hardcore usage than my Athlon. Even the Athlon system is much more robust. Not as robust as my Windows 2000 install, but still noticeably better than Win9x. 

Sadly, there appear to be no magic "performance enhancing" changes within the Windows ME code. There is no discernable increase in application speed in this OS. Indeed, with the aforementioned damage control features turned on, you can count on slightly decreased performance as the price you pay for their use. There is no "magic" here. :)

Next page: Conclusion

[Page 1] [Page 2] [Page 3] [Page 4] [Page 5] [Home]

Talk about it at The Tech Zone Forums