Latest PC to Run Windows Me - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: bobcat2000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2021, 12:43:51 am
content: I have some old Windows 95/98 games I want to run. Many of them has SecurROM and won't run Virtual Box in Windows 10. I have a PC with a Core 2 Duo CPU (don't know which model). Windows Me won't run correctly. No driver for the chipset or the video card.What may be the latest PC to run Windows Me?Any recommendation is appreciated.Danken!

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2021, 05:22:24 am
content: When you do find your hardware, I'd load Windows 98 SE as the last of the DOS-based windows worth installing. Most of us skipped Windows ME as unworthy.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2021, 05:35:06 am
content: Quote from: bobcat2000 on September 26, 2021, 12:43:51 amYikes! I'd agree that for Win95/98 stuff, just use 98SE. As for the hardware, IIRC 98/ME would not be able to use anything beyond a single core and 512MB of RAM, but you will probably run into those chipset driver issues even with systems below that threshold. My best guess is that you will struggle to get it to work on most Pentium 4 and up systems, so you're probably stuck with Pentium 3 or maybe Pentium M. You might be better off with an early AMD Athlon system.Your games won't run on XP?

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2021, 06:38:35 am
content: Core Duo/Quad (9xx series Intel chipsets) is when Win9x support started to fall, although plenty of motherboards were still available with Win9x drivers; P4 era (8xx series chipsets) is fine with Win9x....and if you look around at the unofficial stuff, people have managed to get even Haswell (2014) to run Win9x.

author: bobcat2000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2021, 08:22:17 am
content: I got a PC that could run Windows Me pretty good.It is a Acer Veriton with a Pentium D CPU. Everything is stable except for the video card. No driver I guess. Windows Me handles my Sound Blaster AWE 32 without any problem. I want to try if the Acer can support my Voodoo 3 card (if I can find it in my garage somewhere). But I don't think I can plug a video card to the motherboard. The case is very tight with the big SB32. The SB32 card is very long.I tried to run Windows 98/SE with the Acer. Windows 98/SE could not support the Acer. The USB port or the SATA port did not work. No supported driver I guess.Was the next step up CPU after the Pentium D the Core 2 Duo? If so, there was nothing in between that might be able to support Windows Me....

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2021, 12:11:07 am
content: Core Duo came before Core 2 Duo.It sounds like you might havehttps://archive.is/20130116070920/http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/0000/Acer/VeritonM460/VeritonM460sp2.shtmlwhich has a 946 chipset - 98se needs the chipset set to IDE mode (not AHCI), but USB should be fine by default as it is a normal UHCI+EHCI controller.The GPU will be usable as a standard VGA; if you want higher resolution you can try this generic VESA driver:https://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbe9x.htm

author: bobcat2000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2021, 12:58:22 am
content: I checked. It is a Acer Veriton 6800 with a Pentium D (not a Pentium Duel Core). Pentium D is 2 Pentium 4 put into one chip. Pentium Duel Core is a early version of Core 2 Duo.Maybe that's why it run Windows Me ok. The Pentium D is just a suit-up Pentium 4.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2021, 01:54:12 am
content: The CPU is not the issue, a modern i7 or whatever should run Windows Me (or 9x or whatever) just fine, the problem is that drivers for even the basic stuff like the keyboard and disk interfaces won't be there.Have you tried using Virtualbox? That works pretty well for a lot of things. If there are DOS versions of any of those games Dosbox works really well.I agree with others regarding Me though, it was a turd, Win98 was much better. Many games that will run on Me will also run on Win2k and that is far more robust.

author: bobcat2000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2021, 02:08:35 am
content: Windows Me ran very good. I was running Windows Me for years in the heyday. I liked Windows Me better. People kept complaining Windows Me was because Windows Me did not support DOS.I did try Virtual Box running Windows 98/SE. It ran pretty good but I was running VBox under Windows 10. Majority of the games i wanted to run uses SecurROM. So, the games did not work running in VBox. That's why I am looking for the fastest computer I can use to run Windows Me. Windows Me has much better hardware supports. So, the games using SecurROM can run.Another problem I had running W98/SE was that it didn't work with the USB port. W98/SE could not access the USB port in my Acer. If I wanted to load files to W98/SE, I had to burn a CD.I installed Windows Me in the Acer. It could access my USB flash drive and it could access the network card in the Acer. This made loading files to Windows Me much easier.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2021, 07:35:11 am
content: I think you're the only person I've ever heard say they actually liked Windows Me. I was working at Microsoft back in the Me era and even internally most people thought Me was a turd and viewed it as a stopgap. It looked like Win2k but it was nowhere near as stable, it was quickly abandoned once it became clear that the NT kernel was the future and game developers started making their stuff support Win2k. Win Me had all the disadvantages of both 9x and 2k and few of the advantages of either.

author: bobcat2000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2021, 04:34:00 pm
content: Oh yes. W2K was very good. I couldn't afford it though. It was so expensive like $400 a copy. WinMe was like $50 buck only and it supported all the hardware coming to the market back then.Do you know if I can run all the DOS/Win98/SE/Me games with W2K? Where can I get a legi copy of W2K nowadays?

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 28, 2021, 11:56:26 pm
content: Quote from: bobcat2000 on September 28, 2021, 04:34:00 pmKey word there is "was". These days, I'm sure you can pick up a copy of original disks for under $20 on ebay. Of any of those OS's.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2021, 12:12:30 am
content: You could get original Windows 2000 even back then with zero cost. All you needed to install it was a product key. There was no activation of any kind, and product keys were everywhere. Same for Win ME.Sure this was not "legit" but nowadays? Those OSs have now long been unsupported, who cares if you use a non-legit product key to install them? Probably not even MS. I frankly wouldn't even bother buying a license... if I can even find any to buy.

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2021, 02:01:31 am
content: Quote from: bobcat2000 on September 28, 2021, 02:08:35 amUSB worked fine in Windows 98SE. What didn't exist in Windows 98SE was built-in support for USB mass storage devices, as USB mass storage devices didn't really exist when Windows 98SE was released. The release date for Windows 98SE was May 5, 1999. The USB Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport Revision 1.0 device class specification wasn't final until September 31, 1999.USB mass storage device support was originally developed for Windows 2000, and initially there were no plans to add the support to Windows Me, as initially there were no plans at all for Windows Me to exist after Windows 98SE. Many years ago I knew a lot about that which I have mostly forgotten now. I was the dev responsible for the USBSTOR.SYS driver on Windows 2000, and then porting that back to the Windows Me environment, along with the USBNTMAP.SYS driver that glued it into the different I/O system of Windows Me. I'm still somewhat surprised that it all managed to work. There wasn't sufficient justification at the time to try to officially port the USB mass storage device support all the way back to Windows 98SE.The comment below is 100% correct. No one I knew working on Windows Me was thrilled to be working on it, and never touched it again after it shipped.Quote from: james_s on September 28, 2021, 07:35:11 am

author: Zoli
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2021, 05:42:23 am
content: Attached is a win98(SE) USB mass storage driver; the original website isn't around anymore.I've used on a few computers, it works. But as usual, use at your own risk.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2021, 01:43:11 am
content: Quote from: Zoli on September 29, 2021, 05:42:23 amBased on the filenames I believe that's just a slightly renamed version of the mass storage sample driver that MS provided in the 98SE DDK (source code):https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ftp.microsoft.com/MISC/KB/en-us/257/751.HTM...and astonishingly enough, the download link in the above article is still available.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2021, 03:06:00 am
content: I was fortunate in that I could get a legit boxed copy of Win2k for $50 at the company store so that's what I did, pretty sure I even still have it. Now days though, it's so old I would just find a copy somewhere, it may not be technically legal but the police aren't going to come arrest you for pirating a 20 year old operating system.

author: Zoli
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2021, 04:41:09 am
content: Quote from: amyk on September 30, 2021, 01:43:11 amFrom my bookmark collection, with the help of the wayback machine:https://web.archive.org/web/20120117000654/http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.phpThat was the origin for my post; now I dare you to access the original UK link...Anyway, the MS version looks POC(proof of concept; pun intended), unlike the UK original, which looks production to me.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2021, 06:50:33 am
content: Those are the 3rd party'Maximus Decim' native USB driversoriginally released on the msfn.org forums. IIRC the last release wasnusb36e.exefor Win98 SE.They work well, subject to Win98 SE's filesystem size and type limitations, and I used them frequently up to about five years ago, when I retired my main Win98 machine.

author: bobcat2000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2021, 08:00:38 am
content: There is no need for the drivers. I am running Windows Me. Hardware support is very good with the Acer (except for the video card). The Acer has a Pentium D CPU. Is there any faster PC I can use to run Windows Me? I also have a Dell XPS 630 with a Core 2 Duo. I think I tried Windows Me on the Dell before but it did not work.Ah! I know where I can get a legit copy of W2K. I think I still have my MSDN subscription. I can get a copy there.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2021, 03:19:33 am
content: You can find some isos on archive dot orgWin2k is there, win95 and 98 tooSome intel 915 and a few others could boot Win Me, for the video drivers, you had to hack some inf files to make windows 9x or win2k accept them if they had som compatibility ....For the non bootable win95 and win 98, i hacked them (ultra iso) by adding the cd boot sector and boot file to do cd-rom bootable setupsBring back some souvenirs loll, i have tons of old oses iso's IE: Windows 1, 2, 3.1, 3.11, 3.11 32 bit, NT4, NT5 aka win2k, 95, 98, Me, XP, Vista ..... Servers and the list goes on and onWin2k wont play nice with some games, it was not designed for this, It is an NT vesrion ...Windows Me was fast but fragile, too much crap installed and the problems began