Free web-based email.  Want to learn more? Email Login: Password: New users sign up!

View the PuterGeek.Com Sponsors

Main areas: Amy's Corner Downloads Howie's Corner The PeterCam Peter's Place PuterGeek Speaks Refer-a-Friend Message Board White Papers

WinME or Lose ME

[ Home ] [ Site Map] [ Site Search ] [ Back to last page ]

My First Install of WinME

I ended up wiping and installing WinME because, well, my computer was fubared.

We were hooked up to Park-N-View all day checking email and web surfing. We got disconnected and the next time I tried to connect, I showed being hooked up but couldn't connect to the web. I couldn't check my email, couldn't ping sites, nothing.

So we're thinking it's PNV but Peter could connect fine. So obviously, the problem is with my laptop. So rather than wipe and reinstall with my image, Peter and I decided to do an install of WinME, and here's how it went. I have a Compaq Presario 1270, AMD-K6-2 350, 96 meg RAM, an ATI Rage LT Pro 2xAGP video card, a Lucent 56K Modem, PCI Sound, and a touchpad. I had the drivers for the video card, modem, sound, and touchpad.

9/17/00

6:30 - Backed up my mail, address book, journal, sounds, favorites/links, saved games, and stuff (for lack of a better word).

6:45 - Deleted and created partitions with Partition Magic. Booted with Peter's boot disk and made sure it worked. (It did!) FYI - I have a 4 gig hard drive and made 2 partitions: a C drive of 3.5 gig for all my programs and games, and a D drive of 500 meg for storage. This way, if I have to wipe, I just need to wipe the C drive and all the stuff I need to save is on the D. Comes in handy if you don't have a network. For example, when you save all your 'stuff', you either need to copy the info to lots and lots of floppies, to Zip discs, or burn to a CD. If you have a network, you can copy your stuff to another computer!

7:05 - Started the WinME install. First thing that happened was seeing scandisk running.

7:08 - Setup is now going. I chose custom install because I don't want all the crap installed like online folders and wallpapers and such.

7:12 - Hit the final ok to start the install. Got to watch all the nice information that is shown, although I missed a little bit since I was also messing around with my nails. :-)

7:26 - Saw the countdown to the first reboot.

7:27 - Saw screen showing setting up hardware. Normally, I have to manually do some of the hardware drivers. WinME said "Amy, sit back and relax! I've got them for you!" The video driver I had from ATI isn't the best and I now have a video driver from Microsoft. I didn't have to install any of the drivers I had. WinME gave me all the drivers!!

7:33 - Another reboot.

7:35 - Saw screen showing setting up hardware and Plug and Play devices and control panel, start menu, and system configuration.

7:43 - Countdown to next reboot.

7:44 - Entered name, no password, and seeing windows system settings box.

7:47 - First view of the desktop. COOL ICONS on the desktop. Checked device manager and no errors!!

7:54 - Last reboot and then time to start tweaking!!

The CAB files took 153 meg and WinME took 324 meg for a total of 477 meg. I put the CAB files on the hard drive so if I need to use Windows Setup, I don't have to put the CD in the CD Rom, plus the install goes faster from the hard drive than the CD Rom.

So far WinME looks just like Win98SE. The desktop icons look really cool. The recycle bin actually looks like a trash can! I spent the next few hours transferring over my mail and favorites, making adjustments to the look of Outlook Express, and checking things out.

There are some changes but not a whole lot that I've discovered so far. I'll let you know what my opinion/views are once I get everything installed.

Since I wasn't expecting to do a wipe right now, I didn't have any programs. I guess I'll be making a CD when we get home that will have all my stuff on it. Live and learn!

9/21/2000

Well folks, I'm sold on WinME and here's why. I was installing apps on my laptop and I messed up on an install. It was the kind of install that could mess up the system and make it unstable.

Normally, since I'm a little type A enough, I would wipe the hard drive and do another install. Well, I asked PuterGeek about the System Restore that is included in WinME. He hadn't tried it out yet so I was the guinea pig.

I started System Restore and there is a calendar showing the safe points. I clicked on each day and just looked at it. Two days ago I installed an mp3 player and had one safe point after that install, and one safe point for today before I messed up the install. I clicked on the safe point for this morning and followed the directions. It asked for me to close all open programs and to click yes for a reboot. I clicked yes and guess what?! IT WORKED!!!

Now, it didn't delete the install folders so I deleted those, it deleted the shortcuts on the Start Menu for the program, and it moved some shortcuts that I had made on the Start Menu back to their original positions. I checked Add/Remove Programs and the program was not listed!

This is amazing. I'm really excited about the System Restore utility. I have had one experience with a program like this. It was called GoBack and let me tell you, it 'Went Back' to the software store. (They sure did pick a good name for it.)

Why? Well, I started defrag before I went to bed. I got up the next morning and defrag STILL wasn't done. Go Back was 'remembering' where everything was before it defragged the drive so it could put things back to where they were in the first place.

Well, that really pissed me off. So I said to PuterGeek, "That's it, I'm uninstalling it." He proceeded to uninstall his copy as well - it took him about 10 minutes because he never opened or used the program.

Wanna guess how long it took me to uninstall it? ONE HOUR!! First the program had to detached itself from my computer and give control back, which took around 35 minutes! I did a reboot and then used the program's uninstall routine which took about 10 minutes. Another reboot. Then I used Clean Sweep by Norton to get rid of the rest of the junk.

I'm EXTREMELY excited and encouraged about the System Restore Utility that Microsoft so graciously included in WinME. I don't know about you, but that's worth the price of admission.

[ Home ] [ Site Map] [ Site Search ] [ Back to last page ]

Last Revised: 10/08/2000

Do you want to take a moment to say thank you? Please take a moment to fill out my website survey. Want some free help from the PuterGeek via email? Have you voted in the current poll? Want to try our user-to-user Message Board? Have you checked out our free web-based email? Want to link your website to PuterGeek.Com?

Want to become a PuterGeek.Com Sponsor?

You can now sponsor PuterGeek.Com through PayPal in increments of $10 or more!
For other available options go to the FAN page.

Thanks for the help Thomas!