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Windows ME was a result of MS moving their top talent to the NT group. ME should have never been released, but Win2K wasn't ready to be the consumer OS. When

Windows ME was a result of MS moving their top talent to the NT group. ME should have never been released, but Win2K wasn't ready to be the consumer OS. When you don't have the company riding on you, you can take bigger risks. It will be interesting to see what Windows 8 ends up becoming. Vista was largely a failure because they were overly ambitious, despite common belief. I fear that this failure will prevent Windows from being ambitious again. I hope they learned that they failed for very specific reasons -- not just ambition in of itself.

TomOfTTB 16y ago
For the record that's not really true. By the time Windows ME came out windows development had been split into two pieces. There was the Shell group that was consolidated under Brad Silverberg. And then there was the core operating system group that was under Jim Allchin. So Windows ME actually was the work of the shell group being grafted onto what was still Windows 98. So the reason it sucks so much was because it really wasn't designed by anyone. Microsoft realized they needed a consumer OS so they put together the pieces they had as quickly as possible. Boxed them up and shoved them out the door.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I think what we're saying maybe consistent with each other. Let me point to one of the records at the time: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/reviews/the-road-to-gold-the-development-of-windows-me.aspx http://www.winsupersite.com/article/reviews/the-road-to-gold... A couple of key quotes: "Previously, the Consumer Windows team had been lumped under Jim Allchin's Windows team, which was furiously working to complete Windows 2000, the company's enterprise OS product. But when it became obvious that a consumer version of Windows 2000 was out of the question, the stagnating Consumer Windows team finally got its wish: To create a final release in the Windows 9x product line" and "Just a year earlier, at the 1998 version of WinHEC, Bill Gates had announced that Windows 98 would be the end of the line." There wasn't supposed to be a Win ME, and there shouldn't have been. Win 2000 was supposed to be the merge point of consumer and enterprise, but wasn't ready. Maybe it was Silverberg that led the consumer team to create WinME, I don't know. What I do know is that most of the talent was working on the NT side by that point (not to say that the ME folks were hacks, but they weren't the strongest OS team MS had).

TomOfTTB 16y ago

For the record that's not really true. By the time Windows ME came out windows development had been split into two pieces. There was the Shell group that was consolidated under Brad Silverberg. And then there was the core operating system group that was under Jim Allchin. So Windows ME actually was the work of the shell group being grafted onto what was still Windows 98. So the reason it sucks so much was because it really wasn't designed by anyone. Microsoft realized they needed a consumer OS so they put together the pieces they had as quickly as possible. Boxed them up and shoved them out the door.

kenjackson 16y ago
I think what we're saying maybe consistent with each other. Let me point to one of the records at the time: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/reviews/the-road-to-gold-the-development-of-windows-me.aspx http://www.winsupersite.com/article/reviews/the-road-to-gold... A couple of key quotes: "Previously, the Consumer Windows team had been lumped under Jim Allchin's Windows team, which was furiously working to complete Windows 2000, the company's enterprise OS product. But when it became obvious that a consumer version of Windows 2000 was out of the question, the stagnating Consumer Windows team finally got its wish: To create a final release in the Windows 9x product line" and "Just a year earlier, at the 1998 version of WinHEC, Bill Gates had announced that Windows 98 would be the end of the line." There wasn't supposed to be a Win ME, and there shouldn't have been. Win 2000 was supposed to be the merge point of consumer and enterprise, but wasn't ready. Maybe it was Silverberg that led the consumer team to create WinME, I don't know. What I do know is that most of the talent was working on the NT side by that point (not to say that the ME folks were hacks, but they weren't the strongest OS team MS had).