Time for a new operating system??

I used winme just until a little after they stopped offering support
and they admitted, at the very end, that it was a dud that cannot be
secured. I found windows2000 that I like and is supported but how
about trying Linux and give up the spyware virus magnet, especially on
a system that cannot even be secured in the first place.

Try PcLinux, get the minime version. Simply download the ISO file and
burn it to a CD with DeepBurner and
set your BIOS to boot fropm the CD drive and reboot. Use the system
from your hard drive and decide
if you like it or not. If you like it install it.

it was a dud that cannot be secured.

No more so than any other Win9x operating system and the same is true of
all other operating systems today. All contain hidden vulnerabilities
which when discovered need to be patched be the OS Linux, Mac OS Leopard,
Vista or XP. However without on going support, such as is the case with
Win Me, those holes won't get patched. Due to its age and being a Win 9x
system Win Me isn't particularly vulnerable to exploits currently in the
wild since these primarily target more modern operating systems such as XP
and Vista. Perhaps the biggest weakness is Internet Explorer which is
frozen at IE6 SP1 but that's an easy problem to solve, use Firefox.
--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

I used winme just until a little after they stopped offering support
and they admitted, at the very end, that it was a dud that cannot be
secured. I found windows2000 that I like and is supported but how
about trying Linux and give up the spyware virus magnet, especially on
a system that cannot even be secured in the first place.

Try PcLinux, get the minime version. Simply download the ISO file and
burn it to a CD with DeepBurner and
set your BIOS to boot fropm the CD drive and reboot. Use the system
from your hard drive and decide
if you like it or not. If you like it install it.

"Mike M" wrote in message
...
it was a dud that cannot be secured.

No more so than any other Win9x operating system and the same is true of
all other operating systems today. All contain hidden vulnerabilities
which when discovered need to be patched be the OS Linux, Mac OS Leopard,
Vista or XP. However without on going support, such as is the case with
Win Me, those holes won't get patched. Due to its age and being a Win 9x
system Win Me isn't particularly vulnerable to exploits currently in the
wild since these primarily target more modern operating systems such as XP
and Vista. Perhaps the biggest weakness is Internet Explorer which is
frozen at IE6 SP1 but that's an easy problem to solve, use Firefox.

Thanks for the tip Mike. H.

--
Mike Maltby



wrote:

I used winme just until a little after they stopped offering support
and they admitted, at the very end, that it was a dud that cannot be
secured. I found windows2000 that I like and is supported but how
about trying Linux and give up the spyware virus magnet, especially on
a system that cannot even be secured in the first place.

Try PcLinux, get the minime version. Simply download the ISO file and
burn it to a CD with DeepBurner and
set your BIOS to boot fropm the CD drive and reboot. Use the system
from your hard drive and decide
if you like it or not. If you like it install it.

Mike M wrote:
it was a dud that cannot be secured.

No more so than any other Win9x operating system and the same is true of
all other operating systems today.

Might I say I did use ME for years and had 95, had 3.1 I think it was
called, used DOS and have XP Today.

ME was an ongoing lack of worthwhile performance let alone needed to
be reinstalled pretty often, at least for me, to get it's performance
back or after it became totally unusable.

I started using windows2000 professional and started using Linux and I
almost kick myself for not just plain getting away from relying on ME
far far sooner.

All contain hidden vulnerabilities
which when discovered need to be patched be the OS Linux, Mac OS Leopard,
Vista or XP. However without on going support, such as is the case with
Win Me, those holes won't get patched.

Microsoft states that ME cannot be patched. It seems to me that they
waited until support for ME was to end to finally gave us that news.
That alone may be good reason to look at the alternatives that are out
there.

Due to its age and being a Win 9x
system Win Me isn't particularly vulnerable to exploits currently in the
wild since these primarily target more modern operating systems such as XP
and Vista.

I've heard that before but that doesn't make it any more secure today
or any more less obsolete. I like to hobby around with older operating
systems, I occasionally install Win95 ME and use DOS programs. I like
all of them but there is no reason to not come to todays supported,
easy to use, responsive, stable, secure, wonderful, did I mention
free, operating systems that are out there.

Perhaps the biggest weakness is Internet Explorer which is
frozen at IE6 SP1 but that's an easy problem to solve, use Firefox.
--

Sounds good, I use Firefox and generally use IE as casually as I do
Firefox. However what I've seen with ME tells me that Firefox and any
amount of security software, no matter how carefully and thoughtfully
used, cannot really
help much security-wise, unless the operating system its-self can be
secured from existing and future
security threats.

And it's really not the security aspects for me posting but going
through all this spyware and virus programs on an unsupported system
makes no sense when there are soo many great operating systems that
are under ongoing development and are supported.

http://distrowatch.com/

wrote in message
...

Mike M wrote:
it was a dud that cannot be secured.

No more so than any other Win9x operating system and the same is true of
all other operating systems today.

Might I say I did use ME for years and had 95, had 3.1 I think it was
called, used DOS and have XP Today.

ME was an ongoing lack of worthwhile performance let alone needed to
be reinstalled pretty often, at least for me, to get it's performance
back or after it became totally unusable.

I started using windows2000 professional and started using Linux and I
almost kick myself for not just plain getting away from relying on ME
far far sooner.

All contain hidden vulnerabilities
which when discovered need to be patched be the OS Linux, Mac OS
Leopard,
Vista or XP. However without on going support, such as is the case with
Win Me, those holes won't get patched.

Microsoft states that ME cannot be patched. It seems to me that they
waited until support for ME was to end to finally gave us that news.
That alone may be good reason to look at the alternatives that are out
there.

Due to its age and being a Win 9x
system Win Me isn't particularly vulnerable to exploits currently in the
wild since these primarily target more modern operating systems such as
XP
and Vista.

I've heard that before but that doesn't make it any more secure today
or any more less obsolete. I like to hobby around with older operating
systems, I occasionally install Win95 ME and use DOS programs. I like
all of them but there is no reason to not come to todays supported,
easy to use, responsive, stable, secure, wonderful, did I mention
free, operating systems that are out there.

Perhaps the biggest weakness is Internet Explorer which is
frozen at IE6 SP1 but that's an easy problem to solve, use Firefox.
--

Sounds good, I use Firefox and generally use IE as casually as I do
Firefox. However what I've seen with ME tells me that Firefox and any
amount of security software, no matter how carefully and thoughtfully
used, cannot really
help much security-wise, unless the operating system its-self can be
secured from existing and future
security threats.

And it's really not the security aspects for me posting but going
through all this spyware and virus programs on an unsupported system
makes no sense when there are soo many great operating systems that
are under ongoing development and are supported.

I do understand your reasoning, squirltok, but your assessment of WinME
isn't justified by far. ME isn't as unstable and insecure as you make it out
to be; a lot has to do with the user and the installed software. Mike will
probably attest to that.
I am still using it, despite Heather's disapproval and it works better than
ever, including IE6/SP1. But to each his own. H.


http://distrowatch.com/

webster72n wrote:

|| I do understand your reasoning, squirltok, but your assessment of
|| WinME isn't justified by far. ME isn't as unstable and insecure as
|| you make it out to be; a lot has to do with the user and the
|| installed software. Mike will probably attest to that.
|| I am still using it, despite Heather's disapproval and it works
|| better than ever, including IE6/SP1. But to each his own.
|| H.


Ever since I added 512meg ram to my previous 256meg, WinME has become very
unstable. My mobo is from year 2000, and can support a full 1gig, but
WinME limits me to 256meg to be "reliable". That's not progress, nor is
that acceptable.

"Ogg" wrote in message
...
webster72n wrote:

|| I do understand your reasoning, squirltok, but your assessment of
|| WinME isn't justified by far. ME isn't as unstable and insecure as
|| you make it out to be; a lot has to do with the user and the
|| installed software. Mike will probably attest to that.
|| I am still using it, despite Heather's disapproval and it works
|| better than ever, including IE6/SP1. But to each his own.
|| H.


Ever since I added 512meg ram to my previous 256meg, WinME has become very
unstable. My mobo is from year 2000, and can support a full 1gig, but
WinME limits me to 256meg to be "reliable". That's not progress, nor is
that acceptable.

There must be another reason for your problem. I have 512MB's of RAM with no
trouble at all. That is the limit, not 256. Mike could probably shed some
light on this for you. I know that one has to be selective in
adding/exchanging one's sticks.
H.

Ogg wrote:

Ever since I added 512meg ram to my previous 256meg, WinME has become
very unstable. My mobo is from year 2000, and can support a full
1gig, but WinME limits me to 256meg to be "reliable". That's not
progress, nor is that acceptable.

Have you limited the amount of RAM that can be used for the virtual cache
to 512MB? If not then it is not surprising that the system is unstable as
you will be running out of upper memory address space.

For details see MS KB 253912 - ""Out of Memory" Error Messages with Large
Amounts of RAM Installed" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=253912). The
reason is that allocating more than 512MB of RAM to vcache will exhaust
all available upper memory addresses and thus prevent them being used for
other purposes. Note that this will still mean that all memory is
available to applications but is simply limiting the amount used as
virtual cache memory.
--
Mike Maltby

Hello:

An alternative to Firefox is the fast, freeware Opera v9.x browser, the
latest version which will still run on Win 95 and up, although Win 98 and up
is preferred.

See: http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/ .

Cheers,
O.J.

"Mike M" wrote in message
...
Perhaps the biggest weakness is Internet Explorer which is frozen at IE6
SP1 but that's an easy problem to solve, use Firefox.
--
Mike Maltby

you like it or not. If you like it install it.

Mike M wrote:
|| Have you limited the amount of RAM that can be used for the virtual
|| cache to 512MB? If not then it is not surprising that the system is
|| unstable as you will be running out of upper memory address space.
||
|| For details see MS KB 253912 - ""Out of Memory" Error Messages with
|| Large Amounts of RAM Installed"
|| (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=253912). ..


Yes.... I did the vcache limit setting. I investigated all the various
helps regarding all that. Still get unpredictable and random problems. I
could probably remove the 256meg module, and just run with 512. But I don't
like the idea of "downgrading" my hardware just to accomodate WinME. I'd
rather move to an OS that can handle the hardware, even though it's old
hardware from year 2000. WinME itself doesn't provide anything
extraordinary to compel me to stay with it. I've tested Ubuntu and a few
other distro's with the pc (and the full 756meg), and the results are much
more satisfactory.