Ratzin' Fratzin' MS Windows!

[NETim]

Just got done building a fairly potent PC over the weekend and installed WinME on it. It was the last WinOS I bought two years ago and there's no doubt it will be the last MS product I buy. My wife likes Quicken and since I haven't had the guts or the inclination to get a Windows emulator up and runnin' on a Linux machine, I guess I'm stuck with having a PC burdened with one of those wretched MS OS's.

Anyway, after running it all weekend, the damn thing collapsed today and wouldn't boot back up. I am re-installing it for the 2nd time as I write this.

Another one of my PC's, also a homebuilt, got Solaris 9 installed on it Saturday. It is still working fine.

I am really getting to hate MS.

Tim

 

[LSMITH]

ME is the worst OS they have EVER make. Put XP or 2000 on it, if you don't the headaches won't end. I putzed with ME for over a year, don't make the same mistake. I have XP Pro now and it is rock solid.

 

[EMD Diesel Power]

I'll vouch for XP Pro as well... ... rock solid and I havent had near the amount of problems compared to previous Windows OS's.

 

[Todd G]

Anyone who bashes Microsoft because their copy of ME crashes their new computer should go back to driving their 350cu in converted gasoline to diesel motor.



Honestly, ME was a nasty thing right out of the gate. I installed it and tried to make it work for a month before going to Win2000. AH, much better. We now have XP that is even better.



Even my buddies that are diehard Linux guru's hate to admit they like XP. The world will now come to and end.

 

[NETim]

Naw, MS sucks.

Sorry Todd, I'll go right on bashing MS far into the foreseeable future. The same PC, the new that I just built, the one that ME crashed, installed and ran Linux. Hmmmm... .



I've tried re-installing ME now 4x. Won't get past the "ME" screen. Just hangs there. Hmmm...



So anyway, yeah my company laptop is running MS 2000 Pro and thus far it seems rock solid. I have to admit that maybe MS got it right this time. Maybe.



But going back to the "real stuff", my Cat Scanners, MRI's and related workstations are all running some flavor of UNIX, be it IRIX, Solaris, DecOS and even Linux.



Frankly, I think MS holds great appeal for lazy sysadmins who can't handle UNIX and its flexibility. Got to know a little more to maintain a UNIX box than a MS box from what I've seen.



Obviously I am a fan of UNIX. It's good stuff and it has been for a long, long time. MS is still learnin' to write proper code. :



I know ME is a dud. It was the latest flavor when I gave up on 95 and wanted USB. ME ran OK on the old PPro 200 for quite awhile though albeit with Norton Utilities' able help. I had no reason to believe that it wouldn't work as well with the new system.



XP notwithstanding, I still have major reservations about sending any more money Microsoft's way. Today hasn't been much fun.



Tim

 

[JLinder]

I'm not a computer expert by any means, but let me pass on something our IT guy at work told me. We (outside salesman) all have Gateway laptops, and he upgraded a few to XP from both ME and 2000. He said if you trash the entire hard drive and install XP by itself instead of an upgrade from 98, 2000 or XP it runs even better. It boots faster, and is even more stable than XP running over another OS. I find that hard to believe, because my machine at home has XP running over 98 and it has yet to crash in 1. 5 years.



Food for thought from a computer dummy.

 

[fest3er]

Originally posted by NETim
... My wife likes Quicken ...

I am really getting to hate MS.

Tim

Getting to? What's taking you so long?

Install Linux on the PC and get your wife to try GnuCash. She may just like it.

I started out with a home-made system using dBase on my UnixPC, then switched to Quicken in the early 90's. Now that I've switched almost completely to linux, I found GnuCash does as good a job as Quicken, if not better. GC is a double-entry system; so far I still like it a lot.

Fest3er

 

[illflem]

After using all the MS OS' up to MT I've decided to stick with '98, it works.

 

[Jumbo Jet]

Just make sure you have plenty of disk space and memory if you go with XP.



I have it on 3 different computers - two were a clean install and one was an upgrade from 98. So far all three are very good!



Let the system do all the automatic updates. You get all the MS "security" fixes with the updates.



Internet Explorer v6 was a little buggy before SP1.

 

[skobylenski]

Simple fix: Buy a Mac



Sorry, I had to say it

 

[TPCDrafting]

We bought the MIL a mac for Christmas and it still doesn't work. Brand new and it won't connect with the printer, won't connect to the internet. Had customer support on the phone, had my SIL over who is a mac head. If they were that much more supperior, I'd have one myself. I'm not bad mouthing them by any stretch, but they're not perfect either. I have ME on one of my pc's and it is crap for sure. I'm shopping for xp pro or also thinking of downgrading to '98 which has been good to me thus far. My suggestion Tim, would be to get ME off the machine, quit fooling with it, take it from an experienced user. I reboot me a couple times a day, where as my '98 machine runs all day flawless. Good luck, Tim

 

[TPCDrafting]

re: Ratzin' Fratzin'

I'm not pokin' any fun at you, but Ratzin' Fratzin' is the funniest thing I've read in a while.

 

[Doc Tinker]

BIG mistake - might as well throw away the potent PC now





ME does have some nice utilities though. The defrag works great in 95 and 98





Doc

 

[NETim]

Ratzin' Fratzin' ain't mine!

I stole the line from an old Saturday morning cartoon. I don't remember the name of the cartoon but it was about a bunch of characters racing wacky strange cars in a some kind of race.



One of the characters, a bad guy, had a dog who would mutter "ratzin' fratzin'" under his breath whenever things didn't go his way, which if I remeber right, wasn't very often.



I got the ME to load back up and the new PC is still running after approx 18 hours and several apps s/w installs with the attendant boot cycles. I am crossing my fingers.



I am too cheap and too ****** at MS to consider buying any more of their products. However, if my wife were to buy XP in an effort to get me to quit yelling at the new computer and cussing MS, I'd probably install it.



I think there was a hardware conflict that ME was unable to resolve and that's why it hung up. What brought that on I don't know. All of the h/w had been installed long before it took a dump.



I ended up pulling the battery out that backs up the CMOS to clear it out and even then had to install ME 2X more to get it to run.



So anyway, I think I'll get to run some of that "Ghost Recon" diagnostic on it tonight. If the sniper can take the guy out in the bunker, I know that the RAM checks out.



Tim