Windows ME was bad, but not due to anything specific they did with ME. Between Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, and then ME the hardware landscape absolutely exploded (e.

Windows ME was bad, but not due to anything specific they did with ME. Between Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, and then ME the hardware landscape absolutely exploded (e.g. tens of new categories of devices). Which meant more third party drivers than ever before. Drivers ran in the same address space as the kernel, without isolation, and BY DESIGN would monkey-patch the kernel (with different drivers sometimes stepping on one another). This was already a problem in 98/98 SE, but the whole thing just crumbled under its own weight around the time of ME. 2000/XP by contrast had strict user mode/kernel mode isolation, processes had their own virtual memory, and kernel address space was protected (making monkey-patching more difficult). In XP in particular they also started to adopt Driver Signature Enforcement, which at that time brought a cultural rather than technical shift (i.e. everyone knew it would eventually be mandatory, and so started to tighten processes). Vista then made things even better with Mandatory Driver Signing (64-bit), PatchGuard + ASLR (i.e. no more monkey-patching the kernel), Code Integrity Checks (corruption detection), WDDM for more stable graphics drivers, and shifted some other drivers to user mode (soft failures instead of BSODs). The official sales pitch of ME over 98 SE was: System Restore (new), System File Protection (technically ported from 2K, but new for the 9x line), faster boot (due to real-mode DOS being removed), Automatic Updates, Movie Maker, and improved home networking. It was a big upgrade for people coming from 98 and still a minor upgrade from 98 SE (which a lot of people skipped, even though it was a substantial improvement for just $20 upgrade cost). PS - Vista moving to WDDM for graphics drivers, which everyone takes for granted today, is much of the reason why it was SO poorly received upon released. Vendors moved both to WDDM and in some cases to x64 for the first time, and it was a buggy mess there for at least a year -- which was blamed on Vista.