Why ME?

When we purchased our first laptop as a couple in 2000, a simple Dell Inspiron 8000 , there weren't many choices of operating systems for it and memory at the time was very expensive. In fact if I recall correctly we had no choice and ended up with the Windows Millennium Edition (ME) OS which was a consumer focused very limited operating system that Microsoft stopped supporting in 2006. When we got it we lived in Paris and initially used it for all email and web surfing using a DIAL UP modem but ultimately got a high-speed cable modem (thankfully).

It was the first computer Julia ever used where she played simple educational s/w and I think is one of the reasons she learned to read so early. I would install the updates that came from Dell and Microsoft regularly but never upgraded the OS due to time and cost. Occasionally it would start to slow down and I would have to perform maintenance to get it back to a usable state before Melissa would kill me because it was one of her primary modes of communicating with folks back in the US.

When we moved back to the US we purchased another computer and the little laptop fell somewhat into disuse. Then when Lea became of age there was suddenly contention for using the computer so I resurrected the little computer that could and found that it could still adequately run most of the educational software we had for the kids. This meant that two at a time could go. The down side was that as I loaded more s/w it would again get crippled due to too much in the registry and too much on the disk.

More than once I had to perform major surgery in order to get the little computer back to life. With kids banging away on it who knows what actually would happen, I would jest get a "the computer isn't working" error code from the regular users and would have to go in and debug it myself. It was after several of these episodes that I began to appreciate a feature of Windows ME which is backup points. At some regular frequency the OS establishes a recovery point in time where it takes a snapshot of the system. When the system becomes corrupted, as has happened many times now, you can simple step back in time to a happier place where things work. As I have said I have used this many times.

Another time the disk had become so fragmented (the little pieces of information were so scattered the computer couldn't efficiently read them) that I had to de-fragment it for 4 DAYS!

But alas after that process the "little OS that could" came right back up.

Now mostly used by Nicolas the computer has seen a whole new level of abuse. To begin with he peeled off about half of the keys on the keyboard. I was able to replace all but about 5 of the keys. Unfortunately some of the missing keys involve the passwords to some of the games he likes to play so I had to hook up an external keyboard, which mostly sits on the ground getting stepped on when it is not needed.

Also, his version of "shutting down" the computer involves holding the power button down until it turns off. This is VERY hard on the little computer (CD drive no longer works too) and recently when I tried to start it it told me there was "no registry file" which is the file that tells the computer where all the software is, so that was obviously a problem. Hello January 15th restore point!

I am not sure if any of the other operating systems that MSFT produces have this feature but they should. I am sure they never designed ME to live for 10+ years with no updates or upgrades while getting hammered on by 3 kids.

So in this case only I say hats off to Microsoft and the little OS that could.