some advice please

[averagejane 0]

I'm just an average windows user. Installed me on my first home built pc and things have gone well. It was a little trickier to make it happy than 98se, but I seem to be on the right track. Someone had mentioned that there are some tweaks to free up resources, and I want to know them!! This is one of my few complaints of me, it does tell me quite a bit that resources are low...usually when surfing the web, especially watching the live space station feeds. I start up with about 87% free and I've gotten down to 1% just using the internet. I have networked this pc to another 98 machine. Could this contribute to the resource problem? My 2nd complaint is my stupid soundblaster live value card, sure didnt do my homework on that one. 3rd complaint AOL problems with me. Ended up with cable connection and dumping aol soon. Cable is great!! I wish hardware manufacturers were more on the ball with winme drivers. Even when it says winme ready on the box, it isn't. win2k and winxp sounds like a cure all to the resources problems...but I gotta have my sims!! Installing drivers for me seemed way difficult with the all in wonder 128 pro agp, soundblaster stupid card and stupid, cheap chinese a-open modem. Networking was a headache, but this was my first try at it. I think an average person should be able to configure an operating system. You shouldn't need a degree or be an IT person to get it running right. As anxious as I am about getting win2k or xp, Ill give it time and watch these groups before I run out and buy it. Also, the registration crap that I keep hearing about with xp is a real turn off and that alone may keep me from purchasing it. So, if anyone has a suggestion to a newbie, please feel free to give it.

Mary

[Brian Frank 0]

ME is not worth the effort put into it at all, in my opinion. My advice wouldve been to stick with 98 or go to Win2k. AOL 6.0 is the only one Ive heard of with major issues.

If Microsoft wants to play hardball with XP, two can play that game. There are, um, ways around that activation, at least in the current beta, which should mean that the final release is going to be pretty much the same. I personally do not want to buy a copy of XP for each pc I have, and I will buy only 1 copy.

 

Listen very closely: WinME is crap. I have no clue what the guys at MS were smoking, but it obviously impared some senses.

 

My question is why are the hardware components the stupid things? A-Open is a good manufacturer, and Creative does make good cards, however, the drivers leave something to be desired.

 

To see if the Sims, whatever incarnation that would be, search the game compatability list here at ntcompatible, because that is much much better than MS database, mainly becuase its updated.

For games and apps, if it says it will run on 98 AND NT 4.0, you should be able to run it under Win2k. Even if it doesnt do that, there's this little program on the Win2k cd that you can use to fool the program into thinking you're running a different version of windows.

 

ME is a poor excuse for an OS, and Im glad to see someone outside the nerdworld being turned off by it. You are right, it shouldnt take that much work to get an OS to run well. You shouldnt have to tweak it at all for it to run fine.

 

Oh, and just for the record, A-Open is from Taiwan, not that that matters.

[averagejane 0]

Brian, My post did not mean that I was necessarily unhappy with winme. There are several features that I do like. First off, I haven't suffered from crashes or bsod, like I have had with the 98 pc. It does warn me before it goes that far. I love the system restore and have used it several times during the first couple weeks. I like the media player, believe it or not, and haven't had problems with it. I like the active desktop idea, tho I don't use it. I think there could be some improvements to the system, but it has been really stable for me. The a-open modem was a bad deal and their tech support consists of their website or a long distance call to taiwan...I couldn't find an e-mail address for tech support and for some reason whenever I tried to get to the user forums, aol would report it was not a valid newsgroup. I had major problems with aol using both 5.0 & 6.0 which I think had more to do with the modem than winme. I am still using aol with the cable modem with no problems what so ever. cept, I'm not gonna pay for aol as well as my cable isp. The software that came with the modem didn't work and I had to purchase software for faxing. I do think that winme isn't something a very inexperienced person would want to install, as the drivers for a lot of my hardware required a lot of searching and work. I bought the soundcard based only on the reputation of the name not even giving a thought to compatibility. I assumed creative would support winme drivers and I'm very disappointed. They do have what they call winme drivers, but me complains about the sb emulation driver and the serwave driver. The turtle beach card is calling my name and should work with w2k or xp. I have concerns that winme drivers for various hardwares will be abandoned. I can't blame microsoft for hardware companies unwillingness to provide usable drivers. I could wipe the drive clean and go back to 98, but I'm not that unhappy. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stuck with 98. Winme was a gift from a relative who thought it must be an improvement since it's new. Can you share the tweaks mentioned to get better use of resources? As far as the sims go, the booklet says it wont work with w2k and the newsgroups here seem to go both ways. It's really the only game I play and my kids and I fight over turns to play it. It really is a fun game. If I had to give a rating to winme, I would give it a 7. Thanks for your opinion.

Mary

[Brian Frank 0]

There are several memory freeing utilities, I'll name a few: MemTurbo, FreeRam,MemMonster. Basically, look for ones that wont stop working after a set amount of days and then requires you to purchase it so you can use it. There are a lot of these utilies and other fun stuff at this site: http://www.pcworld.com

 

I know there are many Sims game out, so do you have THE SIMS, or just a sims game. Sorry, I didnt quite follow. There is an APPCOMPAT (or something like that) on the Win2k cd. It just fools the app or game to think it Win9x.

 

Personally, I think vendors just thought that ME was going to be more compatible with hardware, and thus just skipped out on the drivers. That or they didnt figure ME was worth the trouble, which is really odd, cosidering where it was aimed at.

 

Just a question about something Im a little unclear about: Did you do a clean install, ie reformatting your hard drive and then installing ME on it, or did you just upgrade over it?

[rgodart 0]

About your resource problem, i'm sorry i can't help you on this one. But i had the same problem. After some time surfing they drop to 1% and i have to reboot. I had that problem in win98se too. That's one of the reasons why i use win2k now. I still have Me tho on the same computer cuz i never got my games to work well in win2k.

[Cardinal 0]

Mary

 

As far the resource problem is concerned there are many, many tweaks that will help. It will help if you actually specified what resources you mean. Memory I can only assume, or most like with winblows, 'Virtual memory'.

 

Rather then list the tweaks here, I will post a few links to some great guides. Also, it would help to know your system specifications when you make a post as it helps people when trying to diagnose the problem

 

3dspotlight

 

Tweak 3d

 

Tweaktown

 

Windows 98/ME annoyances

 

These will be a good place to start. Have fun.

 

Regards,

 

Cardinal

[averagejane 0]

Hey all,

My system consists of asus csul-2c mb with pentium III 866, 256 ram, Soundblaster live value sound card, ATI all in wonder 128 pro agp video card, 60g maxtor hard drive ata 100, TDK velocid cdrw. I have a best data cable modem, a linksys 10/100 lan card and networking with netgear phoneline 10x usb adapters. This is my 1st attempt at a home built, upgraded my old pc to the limits so I had a little clue and did lots of reading. I did a clean install with an upgrade disk, just inserting the win98 cd to verify that I had an older version.

my resource problems are user resources and gdi resources, which from what I have read, are not related to ram. The articles I have read about user resources and gdi say that win 9x has a 64k limit. NT based systems including w2k do not have this limit. This problem occurs primarily on the internet, worse with any streaming video. We have also experienced the low resources after playing the age of empires game. I have very little running in the back ground, explorer, systray, firewall & proxy (have disabled start up from most the stuff in msconfig).

The system resources issue is what attracts me to w2k or xp when it comes out. The game we like to play is The Sims, the maxis game that you create people and their homes. The book with the sims says it will not run under nt. I also have concerns that drivers for my hardware will be no easier to get, than with win me. I should say win me runs great except for the low resources occasionally. I never had a low resource problem with my old 166 pentium 128 ram system running 98. That computer was left on 24-7, allowed to suspend and rebooted only occasionally. The winme system needs boots to keep it's resources up as it spends alot of time on the internet. I have done the usual tweaks...putting my swap file on another drive, limiting start up programs and changing to network server in file system. I've got dma enabled on all the drives. So, any other tweaks would be appreciated. I'll look into the resource freeing programs that were recommended.

Thanks, Mary

[Brian Frank 0]

I know you're not an IT tech, but you do seem to be quite above the average user. Especially considering you built your own, whereas the computer to most people is like a toaster--where only a pro can touch it.

I saw my dad put together my first pc, and thought that was a lot easier than I thought it was.

 

I'd say you're already ahead in the game to helping yourself.

 

I had a lot of doubts about Win2k before I jumped to it, but I had developed a bad taste in the mouth from ME.Kudos to the guys who can get that thing to run really good, much less have the patience to fool with it that much.

 

There is a compatability patch under Win2k to lie to game or application.

 

If you are serious about going to Win2k,but dont want to ditch ME or 98, you could do a dual boot. The downside to that would be if the Sims actually didnt work, you'd still be out that $$ for Win2k regardless of the upgrade or not. And you'd still have to spring for a partitioning tool like Partition Magic. Youve got a ton of hard drive space so that wouldnt be an issue.

I can lay down the dual-booting, because, as much as I despise ME, I am running a dual boot with ME and Win2k running flawlessly. Plus you've got it set up so you'd be ready to go with Win2k.

[cablehog 0]

The SIMS does run under Windows 2000. I have it myself. Actually, I am running that AND the Livin' Large expansion pack. If you are in need of the apcompat file, you can get it from me at http://cablehog.homeip.net/ntcompat

I tested ME for about 1 week on my systems, and then quickly went back to 2000. I had a lot of driver issues, plus I like the performance increase when it comes to networking. I don't have to reboot all the time as with the 9x flavors.

I am eager to get my hands on Windows XP because I have heard great things from people Beta testing it. (didn't pay the 9 bucks to get a copy...hehehehe)

About your performance issue's, I would highly recommend upgrading to Windows 2000 if you can. My games seem to run just find under it, and incompatibility issues are decreasing, especially since we have ntcompatible.com (PLUG) Some games I have run successfully are: Myst III, Quake III Arena, SIM's:Living Large and Diablo II. There are more to the list, but at least you get an Idea of the recent games that it works with.

Great job on your research BTW! I am very impressed for a newbie to be so informed. Maybe you should go into the IT industry...hehehe. Good luck on your system, and hopefully you will join the Windows 2000 family.

 

BTW, if you want to stay in touch with AOL members, get AOL instant messenger and stick with just the plain cable modem access. (No busy signals)