posted 10-23- 08:53 AM               

I "usually" by the full OEM version of any new operating system... As the "single" IT guy the company I work for has ... I don't have oodles of time to figuring out "upgrade whoes"...

However on this one occasion (mainly because the bean counter forbade me spend 185.00 on the full OEM version).. I purchased the upgrade version for 85.00 bucks.

I proceed with upgrading my admin PC upon returning to the office to determine if everything will behave prior to me "screwing up" anyone elses PC. Whilst this is happening, I flip throught the otherwise useless upgrade manual... I stumble upon this nugget:

"If you have a full product disk from a prior version of Windows, you can perform a full Windows Me installation with your upgrade product CD."

OK, now this pisses me off ... No where on the packaging does it denote this revelation!

What this means is 90% of the people who buy the full OEM for an additinal 100.00 bones are wasting their cash because so long as they have a full OEM version of a previous Windows ... they can do a full install from the upgrade!

In reality... The only people who would need the 180.00 full OEM would be people who have never had ANY previous version of Windows! (and what neanderthal isn't running atleast Win95?)

Now folk... am I wrong to think that this a really crappy marketing by NOT informing the consumers of this?!

DAMN!... for once I have to thank my bean-counter for being a tight-ass!

posted 10-23- 09:07 AM               

Do I need to go on?

If you have Wn 98SE, keep it as ME is only a minor upgrade with xtra drivers. They did add a couple of things to make it more stable and the ability to make digital movies (but you can only use the AVI format, forget any version of mpeg).

Also there's a list of software that breaks under Windows ME that will have to be patched.

Until they speed it up, don't bother

Go to www.tomshardware.com and read the review.

SDOE on Linux- that'd be a great relief

Sam

posted 10-23- 10:00 AM               

I couldn't really tell the difference on the box except it sounded like the cheap one will only upgrade from win98.

I like mine, without dos it shuts down and starts up really fast and it only took 20 minutes to install vs several hours of installing and patching for win95/98

TS

posted 10-23- 10:36 AM               

Hey! I'm man enough to admit I'm an idiot! In defense... all my previous OS's were pure OEM CDs with no form of documentation! [Zur tries real hard to plead ignorance]...

...Tail,

Yeah the 50 buck package is for 98 only ...

posted 10-23- 08:03 PM               

$49-$59, depends on the store- upgrade from win98

$89-$99- upgrade from windows versions prior to 98