Need advice.

[InCreator]

I have Windows Millennium.
It's full of bugs (surprise!).
It gives random errors everytime I start it.

Most common are error in KRNL386.EXE, which halts everything and gives unavoidable by anything else but power off -- blue screen, Sometimes when I start it, just plays startup sound, gives error in COMCTL32.DLL and stays with absolutely empty desktop, without quicklaunch/system tray bars/icons.

Most common is freezing when I close something, and appears to happen in same programs all the time.

It halts when I click on a shortcut on quicklaunch bar which links to my games folder.

I have a somewhat old 16MB NVidia RIVA TNT2 card. Every newest set of drivers I download, makes thing always worse (read: inventing More Errors(TM)). And yet, everyone is always suggesting "get latest video drivers!" Latest drivers my ass.

128 MB RAM on 1,3 GHz system can't be below WinME system requirements any way. DirectX 9.1b is installed and reporting no problems. 40GB HDD, at least 3-4 GB always free.

Defragmenting, Virusscans, scandisk, nothing helps.

What the heck should I do?
And don't say "Get Win XP", because I would never ever give up on playing my HUGE set of arcade emulator ROMs, such as NeoGeo games and Capcom CPS 1 ones. And some good oldies I find myself enjoying whenever I'm filled with this stupid 3D no game is made without, nowadays.

Anyway, if some terrorist group around decides to burn microsoft factories down and ransack mr. Gates' manor, I'm in. Any time.  

[Gilbert]

And don't say "Get Win XP", because I would never ever give up on playing my HUGE set of arcade emulator ROMs, such as NeoGeo games and Capcom CPS 1 ones. And some good oldies I find myself enjoying whenever I'm filled with this stupid 3D no game is made without, nowadays.

In that case, "Get Win 2000" or better, "Get DOS".


Heh just kidding, but actually there're many more window$ emulators than DOS ones nowadays (I know it's irritable to me...), at least there're ones for NeoGeo and CPS1 (and more).

My advice is that you may re-install Win ME, clean, before you start to add more stuffs to it, if there're still problems, it's quite possibly caused by hardware conflicts. (Though a better solution maybe, is to install Win98 or Win95, as Win ME is just a piece of ultimate crap).

[InCreator]

About emulators -  they ARE Windows emulators. But sometimes I think that MS tried to make as much games/emulators as possible NOT to work on XP, so every jerk could pay more attention to Age Of Empires (MS product) or something... NeoRageX won't work on XP. DOS games too. But yes, errors chased me to WinME from W98, now I think they'll beat me back to 98.

But really, how can it be that WinME just sucks? Just like that?

There MUST be some explanation why it goes wild only 2 weeks after clean install to fresh, formatted hard disk.

I go wild when some moron steps up and says "But there's DOS emulator you could use with XP"... EMULATE DOS? Someone, emulate me an AK-47 here so I could stop this shit.

(explanation: InCreator, 20 years old, started his IBM PC career at the age of 6. All these 14 years he used, knew and loved DOS.)

[theyak]

It can be that Windows ME just sucks.  Even Microsoft has admitted that it's the worst and least stable of the OS'es they've released - and that counts the atrocious Win 3.0.  If I were using it, I'd backtrack to 98SE or go to 2000 (if I wanted to avoid XP).  In the meantime, you might make sure you've installed the MS Updates as there are probably patches and service packs to fix some of MS's screw-ups.

As far as your errors go, sounds like some registry entries are screwed up or non-existant.  Either it's just the entries or you've got missing/corrupt system files.  The best option is a re-install, preferably a "clean" one, not just installing over the old files.  You can accomplish a clean install by wiping out the Windows directory before your install.  Killing the Program Files directory or any personal directories you've got isn't really necessary.

If you don't feel comfortable with that or would prefer to try less harsh means, check around support sites.  Take your error and plug it into MS knowledge base's search.  Also try http://www.annoyances.org.  

Look for registry fixing/cleaning utilities as they may dig you out of your grave.  Be sure you've done a good disk check recently.  Just in case, run a spyware-checker and virus-check in case some of your stabilty problems are due to nasty programs.

[SSH]

Dual boot system: WInME and WinXP. Use Winme for your old stuff and XP for stability.

You can even get programs that split your PC into virtual machines so that you can use both at once.

I have WinME at home too and it does crash at annoying points, although it seems to be better recently. Eliminating unneccesary resident programs (like Office launcher thingy) seems to help its stability.

[BOYD1981]

for compatibility i'd install Win98se, it's never given me any problems and runs everything i need to without any problems.
but, it seems that you already know what the problem is (the biggest being having WinME installing in the first place), KRNL386.exe and COMCTL32.dll, IF your WinME cd is a pirate copy these files could be damaged, if you know somebody else with a copy of WinME ask to borrow it and see if the install is better.
the problem could also be memory, if it's faulty you'll get all kinds of problems, try get yourself a copy of Norton Systemworks which will allow you to check all of your hardware for problems, also get something like RAM Idle Pro, this programme will give you information about how much free RAM you have and let you free it up.
you might also want to consider upgrading your graphics card, and if you are going to install new drivers make sure they are signed.
another thing you could try is install win98 then the winME upgrade, but winME isn't really suited for people wanting to use PCs, even microsoft have said it was a mistake...

[InCreator]

Okay, thanks. I'm gonna try these progs BOYD suggested, new dll/exes and if there's nothing else left to do, Windows '98 is coming back to house.

[c.leksutin]

I still haven't given up my windows 98.   I keep the CD in my bank safety deposit box.


C.

[InCreator]

Is there a place where MS explains differences between all windows versions?
Like, not the typical "Got faster, easier, better"-crap noone believes, but really, a version history?