Monday, April 2, 2001		Article

Check before installing Windows Me
By Vipul Verma

WHICH one of these is the best Windows operating system — Windows 98SE, Windows Me, Windows NT and Windows 2000? It’s a hot topic of debate among the computer users.

This debate is neither over yet nor would it be as the user preference and choice are not unanimous and varies. For example, for home normal office environment, Windows ’98 SE is a good option as it offers great features. However for large corporates and organisations that involve large networks, Windows 2000 would be a preferred choice. But for the home segment, the choice could be in the favour of Windows Me. Windows Me is an excellent operating system that caters to all the needs of a home as well as small office users. Going by the features, it has some advanced utilities and basically it is the advanced version of Windows ’98. However, its features related to crash protection or system restore is the most important one for the home users whereas some other important features include new TCP/IP stack – that help in better Internet performance, Windows Media Player 7, Internet Explorer 5.5, Movie Maker application for recording, editing, publishing and organising audio and video content.

Despite these good and advanced, you would require some tips and tricks that are essentially a part of this system only but are normally lesser known and often ignored.

Hardware compatibility

First of all, before the installation of Windows Me, you may require some important tips. It is an important feature of Windows Me that it does not support real mode DOS. Thus if your computer is quite old then in that case it will not be worth installing Windows Me as it will not be compatible with hardware that requires a DOS driver, This holds equally good for a number of software titles, which run in real mode DOS interface. The compatibility of the hardware is therefore the first and the most important factor that should be considered before attempting to install Windows Me. If you are installing Windows Me on an old computer make sure that your PC is virus free and once you have checked your hard disk for all possible viruses you must first disable all software-based and hardware-based (the boot virus detection option found in most system BIOS) anti-virus applications before running Windows Me setup. Another important step in the process of installation is freeing the necessary disk space. No matter how big hard disk you may have, eventually you will land up filling it up completely. Thus before you proceed with installation make sure that you have a minimum of 480 MB of hard disk space at least. However the desirable hard disk space is 635 MB.

Another issue that is very important is the hardware compatibility. Either you install Windows Me afresh or simply upgrade your previous operating system, make sure it is compatible with Windows Me. In case there is no immediate compatibility, you must not use this operating system, as you will not be able to get the desired performance.

In some cases like old computers upgrading may not bear fruits and fresh installation would be a better idea. However, if Windows Me has to be installed on a fresh disk with no operating system previously installed, then the installation is simple as you just need to boot your PC with the Windows Me bootable CD. Just like any other operating system, it is desirable to keep a bootable disk of Windows Me. However, this would be made possible after installation of Windows Me on your system. The procedure for making the bootable disk is quite simple and involves creating a Quick Boot Disk. As mentioned earlier though you can’t reboot Windows Me to a DOS prompt yet you can create a simple boot disk. In order to create a bootable disk, format a floppy disk and copy Windows\ Command\ EBD\ IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM files to the floppy. These files will serve as a quick boot disk and thus help in the time of crisis.

Now we shall concentrate on maintenance of Windows Me. It is worth mentioning here that what Windows Me has and what Windows ’98 doesn’t is the System file protection. System file protection is a feature that saves the computer from crashes as it prevents the replacement of certain monitored or protected system files. It is a common habit of computer users to install and try new software. Though the software made by standard companies are good yet some sub-standard software that work well on your system can cause considerable damage to the operating system by replacing their critical files. This is an important factor for the computer users, as they can’t themselves make out, which software would replace their system files. With Windows Me as the operating system, you need not worry about these things as System File Protection runs in the background.

System File Protection or SFP monitors a database of system-protected files while having access to the same files on a hidden location on the hard disk. If one of the protected files is deleted or replaced by an older version or a version not approved by Microsoft, SFP will copy the original version of the file from the hidden location. This act does not involve any action from the users side as it is being done automatically. Moreover, since this task is carried out in the background, it also does not give any error warning for either deleting of system file by the software or replacing of the same by the Windows.

You can enable the popup notification of any change in the system files by editing the registry but it may not be desirable at amateur level and could basically be attempted by professionals. However the procedure for enabling the pop up notification is as under:

As a first step, start the registry editor. Then Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ SystemFileProtection and double click on the ShowPopups value. Now change the value from 0 to 1 to enable the Popup notification. Now close the Registry Editor and restart Windows. Next time if there is a change in the SFP, Windows will give a Popup notification. However, if you wish to disable the Popup notification, then in the last step simply change the value to 0 from 1.

You can see the list of all files, which have been replaced. This file is being named as Sfplog.txt, and can be found in the \ Windows\ System\ SFP folder.

System file protection is not the only thing, which is a great feature of Windows Me. The list of additional features is quite large. However, one feature that can add a lot of value for the user is the dial-up adapter performance monitoring.

Normally, the Internet-users always wonder about their Internet speed in terms of connection, bytes received or transmitted/second, as well as several types of errors. Using Windows Me you can keep a track on all these important things under the System Monitor, which includes a dial-up adapter section. Thus to check your Internet performance under the dial-up adapter system monitor, go to Start > Programs > Accessories / System Tools. Now from here you can Add items from Edit / Add menu. If you need to install the System Monitor, go to the Control Panel / Add/Remove Program / Windows Setup / System Tools.

You might be computer professional if...

• When asked about a bus schedule, you wonder if it is 16 or 32 bits.
  
  

• You dream in 256 palettes of 256 colours.
  
  

• You are reading a book and look for the scroll bar to get to the next page.
  
  

• After fooling around all day with routers etc, you pick up the phone and start dialling an IP number.
  
  

• You get in the elevator and double-click the button for the floor you want.
  
  

• You look for an icon to double-click to open your bedroom window.
  
  

• You look for the undo command after making a mistake.
  
  

• You disdain people who use low baud rates.
  
  

• You know how to take the cover off of your computer and what size screwdriver to use.
  
  

• You can understand sentences with four or more acronyms in them.
  
  

• You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.
  
  

• You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tyres.
  
  

• You see a bumper sticker that says "Users are Losers" and you have no idea it is referring to drugs.
  
  

• You know without a doubt that diskettes come in five-and-a-quarter and three-and-a-half inch sizes.