I had read the reviews and the advice from the main PC journals that Microsoft Windows ME probably isn’t worth the upgrade price over Windows 98 Second Edition. However, I am one who must have the latest whether I need it or not. I am a typical home computer hobbyist and professional communicator who feels he does know a bit more about computer programs than perhaps the average person. I don’t claim to be an expert.

I am using a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion 8490, 500 MHz with 128MB of RAM. I had already installed Windows Second Edition over the original Windows and found very little difference with that upgrade. I purchased the ME promotional product on its opening day of sales.

However, ME definitely is proving different if for nothing more than its clever new bells and whistles. First of all I found installing almost a miracle!! The system has a super hardware and driver recognition capability that resulted in not a single adjustment having to be made with my existing drivers. All my previous settings were flawlessly preserved. The only hitch was receiving a message warning that the CD Creator program for my HP Rewritable drive might not run. I had already learned this is ignored because it does run, and the same message had appeared with Second Edition. It took about 45 minutes to finish the installation.

Microsoft has added many neat features to this program, and I feel the main one is it is more user-friendly. (The most exciting feature is discussed at the end of this article. Save the best for last!!) I think beginners will find it much more intuitive and easy to use. The changes in the menu formats contribute to this improvement. The help feature is the best ever and is tied to the internet for full Microsoft support.

Among other changes are a compression utility that simplifies compressing and encrypting folders, and a new feature for putting programs into “hibernation.” My computer is over a year old and does not support this feature but it promises to have great potential. Most of us have used “standby” for years, where the computer goes to sleep and awakens with the same screen and program last used. Hibernation will let you turn off your computer, save anything you are working on the hard drive, and all is restored when turned on again. Mine won’t work but I take Microsoft’s word that it will on some of the latest computers.

But there is more.

I won’t take the space to go into many of the other features mainly because I haven’t mastered them yet. However, the piece de resistance is the capability to restore your computer to a previous point of time, and to a risk-taker and experimenter like me, it should prove to be the greatest new feature of Windows ME! The program permits you to establish restore points that can take your system back to where it was at the designated time. If you are tempted to buy that $5 program on the bargain table, and it overwrites some of your critical files, so what; you can go back to where you were. In past occasions, I have had to restore my entire original configuration after corrupting my system with outdated programs. In restoring, personal data is not lost. Offending programs must be removed, however, because Restore does not perform that task.

Windows ME automatically creates restore points on a periodic basis. I notice mine is performing that task once a day. But the real use will be to create a restore point PRIOR to making some major change or installing a questionable program.

Advice: Learning the new features can be difficult without some outside help. I thumbed through a number of new books but found and purchased one ideally suited for a person who already has a reasonable understanding of Windows 98. The book is by Microsoft and is entitled Windows ME Millennium Edition At a Glance.