4 ms·

I just want to point out that you're saying windows ME was the peak of software performance and polish. And following that - I call complete and utter bollocks

I just want to point out that you're saying windows ME was the peak of software performance and polish. And following that - I call complete and utter bollocks.

foxfluff 5y ago
Did I really say that? From any given era, you can find gems and garbage.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  You could almost even say that the past is just like today! :D It turns out it's not all roses and bliss. It's basically the same half-baked, mostly unusable, bucket of dirt you dig through to find the diamonds. But everyone only ever remembers the diamonds.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    No-one said it's all roses and bliss. My argument is that mainstream software was, on average, more performant and more polished (and not considerably more buggy or unstable; possibly less buggy due to being less complex) than it is today. I was relatively happy using mostly the same software that everyone else was using too. Today, not so much; I find most mainstream software unbearable, repulsive, slow, full of annoying quirks & rough edges. I'm not happy using it so I don't. For me it's a completely different era. I don't know if anyone is measuring this objectively, and I assume not. So we might not ever be able to say whether the claim is objectively true or just my subjective experience. But it's not fair to dismiss the whole argument by mischaracterizing it.
mwcampbell 5y ago
The GP actually praised Windows XP SP2, not Windows Me. Now one could argue that in some ways, Windows XP was a regression and Windows 2000 was the peak. But not Windows Me; that's widely regarded as the worst of the doomed 9x line.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Right, I don't really know anyone who seriously used ME. I guess some people who bought prebuilt computers at an unfortunate time might have been stuck with it for some time. The people I know held on to 98 (or 98SE) for as long as it served them, and then switched to 2000 or XP. I also never saw ME in schools, libraries, corporate settings, etc.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  Sure - and apparently we're all happy to claim that "today is the worst - yesteryear was fantastic!" And then ignore all the stinking piles of garbage that actually made up the past. This is nostalgia in action. Those rose-tinted goggles have slipped down over your eyes. You remember "Windows 2000 was great", you don't remember "Windows ME was so bad it was literally (not metaphorically literally - literally literally) unusable, and Microsoft STILL SHIPPED IT!".
  - mwcampbell 5y ago
    > Those rose-tinted goggles have slipped down over your eyes. I never actually said I agreed with the nostalgia; I was just clarifying the position of the person you were replying to, and what I perceive to be widely held opinions. > Windows ME was so bad it was literally (not metaphorically literally - literally literally) unusable Perhaps it was that bad for some people. If so, that's unfortunate. But I ended up with Windows Me sometime in college, and it was usable enough that I used it to develop and ship the first few versions of the first commercial software product that I was hired to develop. So it wasn't that bad. Still, once I could afford a PC with Windows XP, I got one and never looked back.
    - hyperman1 5y ago
      Windows ME was strange. In some computers it was a modernized Win98, not really better or worse. On others, it caused all kinds of crashes, including total irrecoverable data loss on hard disks. One of the weirdest examples I know of was a particular series of desktops, sold in the supermarket with ME. I knew 2 people buying identical machines in the same week from the same supermarket. One of them worked flawlessly. The other one was such a miserable crash prone machine. We forced Win98 on the crasher and all was well again.

I just want to point out that you're saying windows ME was the peak of software performance and polish. And following that - I call complete and utter bollocks.

foxfluff 5y ago

Did I really say that? From any given era, you can find gems and garbage.

horsawlarway 5y ago
You could almost even say that the past is just like today! :D It turns out it's not all roses and bliss. It's basically the same half-baked, mostly unusable, bucket of dirt you dig through to find the diamonds. But everyone only ever remembers the diamonds.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  No-one said it's all roses and bliss. My argument is that mainstream software was, on average, more performant and more polished (and not considerably more buggy or unstable; possibly less buggy due to being less complex) than it is today. I was relatively happy using mostly the same software that everyone else was using too. Today, not so much; I find most mainstream software unbearable, repulsive, slow, full of annoying quirks & rough edges. I'm not happy using it so I don't. For me it's a completely different era. I don't know if anyone is measuring this objectively, and I assume not. So we might not ever be able to say whether the claim is objectively true or just my subjective experience. But it's not fair to dismiss the whole argument by mischaracterizing it.

mwcampbell 5y ago

The GP actually praised Windows XP SP2, not Windows Me. Now one could argue that in some ways, Windows XP was a regression and Windows 2000 was the peak. But not Windows Me; that's widely regarded as the worst of the doomed 9x line.

foxfluff 5y ago
Right, I don't really know anyone who seriously used ME. I guess some people who bought prebuilt computers at an unfortunate time might have been stuck with it for some time. The people I know held on to 98 (or 98SE) for as long as it served them, and then switched to 2000 or XP. I also never saw ME in schools, libraries, corporate settings, etc.
horsawlarway 5y ago
Sure - and apparently we're all happy to claim that "today is the worst - yesteryear was fantastic!" And then ignore all the stinking piles of garbage that actually made up the past. This is nostalgia in action. Those rose-tinted goggles have slipped down over your eyes. You remember "Windows 2000 was great", you don't remember "Windows ME was so bad it was literally (not metaphorically literally - literally literally) unusable, and Microsoft STILL SHIPPED IT!".
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  > Those rose-tinted goggles have slipped down over your eyes. I never actually said I agreed with the nostalgia; I was just clarifying the position of the person you were replying to, and what I perceive to be widely held opinions. > Windows ME was so bad it was literally (not metaphorically literally - literally literally) unusable Perhaps it was that bad for some people. If so, that's unfortunate. But I ended up with Windows Me sometime in college, and it was usable enough that I used it to develop and ship the first few versions of the first commercial software product that I was hired to develop. So it wasn't that bad. Still, once I could afford a PC with Windows XP, I got one and never looked back.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    Windows ME was strange. In some computers it was a modernized Win98, not really better or worse. On others, it caused all kinds of crashes, including total irrecoverable data loss on hard disks. One of the weirdest examples I know of was a particular series of desktops, sold in the supermarket with ME. I knew 2 people buying identical machines in the same week from the same supermarket. One of them worked flawlessly. The other one was such a miserable crash prone machine. We forced Win98 on the crasher and all was well again.