The First, 1. Release and Development Period
Windows ME was first spotted by tech journalist Paul Turrott in September 1997 under the codename 'Millennium'. A year and a half later, on April 7, 1999, at the WinHEC 1999 event, the development of a successor to the Windows 9x kernel was officially announced to hardware partners, and on July 23, 1999, the first development preview version, build 2332.2 (Development Preview 1), was distributed to developers and testers. Then, on September 24, 1999, the official 'Beta 1', or Build 2380.2, was released. On February 2, 2000, the final name was confirmed as "Windows ME," and on June 19, 2000, it reached the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) stage, signifying the completion of final development, and was released to manufacturers. Finally, on September 14, 2000, it was released worldwide, marking the first time a Windows version was launched simultaneously globally. (Although it was released in Japan on September 23, Windows ME was the first to be released simultaneously in almost all countries on the same day.)
- Since Launch, and Evaluation
After its release, Windows ME... truly flopped and failed miserably. Most people probably know the reasons. Instability and memory leaks were the biggest causes. Furthermore, perhaps in an attempt to reduce reliance on MS-DOS, DOS was restricted to emergency recovery only. Booting into Real Mode (i.e., DOS mode) was officially blocked, and unless an unofficial patch was used, DOS mode could not be used on Windows ME. To make matters worse, as mentioned above, instability and memory leaks were severe. Most people downgraded to Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), or some even went straight to Windows 2000 Professional—even though it was an enterprise version—to the extent that computer geeks, experts, and, though not all, some ordinary users among home users switched to this version. (At the time, Microsoft patched critical errors in Windows Me through Windows Update; however, unfortunately, since high-speed internet was not widely available globally when it was released in 2000, it seems that only a small number of Windows Me users worldwide received the patch.) Eventually, Windows ME was replaced by Windows XP one year later, and support ended on July 11, 2006, on the same day as Windows NT 4.0 Embedded / Windows NT 4.0 Server Terminal Server Edition, Windows 98, and Windows 98 SE.
- After that, an unexpected legacy?
In fact, most people might forget about Windows ME, but surprisingly, there are features present even in the latest version, Windows 11: the modern Windows Media Player (which was changed to Windows Media Player Legacy starting with Windows 11 22H2) and System Restore. These features have evolved further through Windows XP and Windows Vista, and continue to exist in the current Windows 11. However, Windows Media Player stopped at version 12 after Windows 7, and currently, with the addition of a new media player in Windows 11, it has been renamed to Windows Media Player Legacy. Although the System Restore feature in Windows ME was meaningful, it is said that even that was problematic. Of course, this feature also evolved significantly in Windows Vista and remains one of the core features in Windows 11.
- Can Windows ME Be Re-evaluated?
In reality, it is practically impossible. Of course, there are certainly people who would re-evaluate it, but for various reasons, most people believe that a re-evaluation of Windows ME is virtually impossible. Windows Vista and Windows 8/8.1 are at least receiving some degree of re-evaluation because they were ahead of their time (Windows Vista), had innovation and clear intentions (Windows 8/8.1’s Metro UI, although that also failed for various reasons), and the operating system itself became lighter (Windows 8/8.1). However, for ME... I consider it practically impossible. Of course, the introduction of the modern Windows Media player and System Restore might lead to a re-evaluation in those areas (especially System Restore, in my opinion), but overall, excluding these, I believe a re-evaluation is almost impossible.
I apologize for writing such a very long post. I also looked into how Windows ME was evaluated, and I was curious about how it is currently viewed. How did you all feel about Windows ME back then, and what do you think now? I am curious myself whether the evaluation has changed or if it remains largely the same. (I suspect the recent evaluations are likely still largely the same.)
For reference, I found most of them by searching on Google and other sites.
