"Windows Me was unstable, unloved and unusable," remembered Computerworld last year, on the 20th anniversary of its release, calling it "a stink bomb of an operating system." Windows Me was a ghastly, slapdash piece of work, incompatible with lots of hardware and software. It frequently failed during the installation process — which should have been the first sign for people that this was an operating system they shouldn't try.Often, when you tried to shut it down, it declined to do so, like a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum over being forced to go to sleep. It was slow and insecure. Its web browser, Internet Explorer, frequently refused to load web pages.
But they ultimately argue that it wasn't as bad as Windows Vista, which "simply refused to run, or ran so badly it was useless on countless PCs. Not just old PCs, but even newly bought PCs, right out of the box, with Vista installed." And they conclude that the worst Microsoft OS of all is still Windows 8. ("You want bad? You want stupid? You want an operating system that not only was roundly reviled by consumers and businesses alike, but also set Microsoft's business plans back years?")

Slashdot reader alaskana98 even remembers Windows ME semi-fondly as "the last Microsoft OS to use the Windows 95 codebase." While rightly being panned as a buggy and crash-prone OS — indeed it was labelled as the worst version of Windows ever released by Computer World — it did introduce a number of features that continue on to this very day. Those features include:

-A personalized start menu that would show your most recently accessed programs, today a common feature in the Windows landscape.
-Software support for DVD playback. Previously one needed a dedicated card to playback DVDs.
-Windows Movie Maker and Windows Media Player 7, allowing home users to create, edit and burn their own digital home movies. While seemingly pedestrian in today's times, these were groundbreaking features for home users in the year 2000.
-The first iteration of System Restore — imagine a modern version of Windows not having the ability to conveniently restore to a working configuration — before Windows ME, this was simply not a possibility for the average home user unless you had a rigorous backup routine.
-The removal of real-mode DOS. While very controversial at the time, this change arguably improved the speed and reliability of the boot process.

Love it or hate it (well, lets face it, if you were a computer user at that point you probably hated it) — Windows ME did make several important contributions to the modern OS landscape that are often overlooked to this day. Do you have any stories from the heady days of late 2000 when Windows ME was first released?
Slashdot reader Z00L00K remembers in a comment that "The removal of real-mode DOS is what REALLY made ME impossible to use for most of us at the time. It broke backwards compatibility so hard that the only way out was to use any of the earlier versions of Windows instead!"

Is this re-awakening images of the year 2000 for anyone? Share your own memories and thoughts in the comments.

What do you remember about Windows ME?

Windows 11's taskbar is a giant step back in usability compared to Windows 10, and now Microsoft is starting to make improvements. A new update that's currently being tested by Windows Insiders brings the clock and date back to the taskbar on secondary or multiple monitors. From a report: It's a change that multiple monitor users will appreciate, as many have had to install third-party apps like ElevenClock just to get this basic functionality in Windows 11. I've not been shy about criticizing the changes made to the taskbar in Windows 11. I hate the new taskbar, so I'm happy to see Microsoft make this initial change. There's still much more to be improved, and hopefully we see the return of being able to drag and drop files onto taskbar apps and the general customization options. Elsewhere, Microsoft is also making some improvements to the Start menu in Windows 11. The latest 22509 Insider build includes the ability to configure the Start menu to show more pins or more recommendations instead. That makes the Start menu a little more customizable, although many Windows 11 users are also opting for third-party apps here, too.

Microsoft has decided to add "Buy Now, Pay Later" financing options to its Edge browser in the U.S. -- and the overwhelming response has been negative. The Register reports: The Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) option pops up at the browser level (rather than on checkout at an ecommerce site) and permits users to split any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made via Edge into four instalments spread over six weeks. The system is powered by Zip, previously Quadpay, and offers a Chrome extension for users who want to split their payments (interest-free if you make the payments on time, although Zip charges $1 per installment). Microsoft has now bundled the platform into Edge.

Feedback could charitably be described as negative so far, as demonstrated by the tags assigned to the post on Microsoft's Tech Community site. Comments (numbering 119 at time of writing) posted by visitors to the site can be pretty much summed up thusly: "This [is] a cheap and disgusting move from Microsoft and edge team to the browser users. You should be ashamed for pushing such crap to users. Listening to the users checkout flows, suggesting third party services. Bloating the browser. Seriously, be better and more responsible." "It's deeply shocking this is built into the base Windows OS on billions of devices," writes cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont in a tweet. "I feel like I should start a GoFundMe for Microsoft, or teach them how to beg bounty, as clearly they need the money."

An anonymous reader writes: People running Android phones may want to hold off upgrading to Android 12 if they also use apps purchased through the Amazon Appstore. The Appstore app itself is not compatible with Android 12, which prevents many, if not all, apps purchased and downloaded via Amazon from running. The Android OS update began to be rolled out to Pixel phones over a month ago, and more recently, newer Samsung Galaxy handsets, such as the S21. Amazon has acknowledged the problem in a 90-post support forum thread, as well as in the Appstore app itself, but has not provided a timeline for a fix to restore users' apps.

An anonymous reader shares a report: We're nearly two months out from the public release of Windows 11, and Microsoft is still slowly updating bits and pieces of the operating system that weren't quite ready in early October. Microsoft announced redesigned emoji back in July, and the next Windows update (version 22000.348, if you're tracking this sort of thing) adds those emoji to Windows 11. The new emoji remove the bold, black outlines from the Windows 10-era designs and change the colors and shapes of a few to make them match up better with Apple's, Google's, and Samsung's glyphs -- compare the new design for Spiral Shell to the old one, for an example. There are also a few cute Microsoft-specific touches, like a Clippy design for the paperclip emoji, though Ninja Cat appears to have been removed entirely.

Along with the release of Windows 10's November 2021 update, Microsoft announced that it will no longer provide Windows 10 updates twice per year. Instead, it's switching to a once-per-year schedule. As Ars Technica notes, "This is meant to sync Windows 10's update schedule with Windows 11's, which is also going to receive major feature updates once per year." From the report: Microsoft hasn't committed to the number of yearly updates it will provide for Windows 10, but the company will support "at least one version" of the OS until update support ends in October of 2025. Microsoft is promising 18 months of support for Windows 10 21H2, so it seems safe to assume that we'll at least see 22H2 and 23H2 releases for Windows 10. For businesses using Windows 10 Enterprise, version 21H2 is also a Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) update and will receive update support for five years instead of 18 months. While more Windows 10 updates will be welcome news for anyone who isn't ready to move to Windows 11 or whose hardware doesn't support the new OS, it's not clear what "feature updates" will entail for an operating system that has been replaced.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A patent filed by Apple and published Thursday by the US Patent and Trademark Office details the tech giant's interest in creating "privacy eyewear" that blurs content on a device's screen unless someone is wearing special glasses to look at it. As spotted by Patently Apple, the patent, which focuses on creating different FaceID profiles for various visual impairments, explores a new type of privacy screen. The patent doesn't specify any Apple product by name. Instead, it refers to electronic devices in general, including smartphones, watches, laptops, TVs, and car displays. Drawings in the patent show the feature working on a smartphone-like device. The technology would use a face scan to determine if the user is wearing the required glasses. It could recognize the headgear by a specific graphic, such as a QR or bar code.

If you're worried about someone looking at your phone over your shoulder, you could activate the feature "to make the graphical output illegible." Your privacy eyewear, meanwhile, would "counteract the intentional blur." "The blurred graphical output may compensate for the distortion created by the privacy eyewear vision of the user by, for example, blurring a portion and/or the entirety of a standard graphical output; generating an overlay over the standard graphical output; and/or making elements of the standard graphical output larger, brighter, and/or more distinct," Apple's patent reads. "In some embodiments, the blurred graphical output may only replace certain graphical elements presented in the standard graphical output. The blurred graphical output may be a default graphical output designed to compensate for the privacy eyewear." Further reading: Apple Aiming To Announce Mixed-Reality Headset In 'Next Several Months'

The creator of EdgeDeflector said this week that the latest Insider build of Windows 11 now blocks all default browser workarounds. If this functionality makes its way to the finished product, it will mark a new, dark chapter for Microsoft, which told the media at the Windows 11 launch that it was aware that it had made changing app defaults pointlessly difficult, but that it had not done so maliciously and would fix it. This is the opposite of that claim. From a report: "Something changed between Windows 11 builds 22483 and 22494 (both Windows Insider Preview builds)," EdgeDeflector creator Daniel Aleksandersen writes in a new blog entry. "The build changelog ... omitted the headline news: you can no longer bypass Microsoft Edge using apps like EdgeDeflector."

Microsoft not communicating effectively? I find that hard to believe. Cough. But Microsoft moving to make Windows 11 behave even more maliciously towards its users and browser rivals? That I have a hard time with. Basically, EdgeDeflector, as well as third-party browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Brave, intercept OS-level URL requests that force you to use Microsoft Edge even when you have gone through the incredibly ponderous steps to make a non-Edge browser the default in Windows 11. But in the latest Insider Preview build, Microsoft is changing how these URL requests work. And it's no longer possible to intercept URL requests that force users to use Edge instead of their default browser. (In the Insider builds. This functionality will come to mainstream users in the coming months unless we can change Microsoft's collective mind.)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft is taking the fight to Chromebooks in schools with the $250 Surface Laptop SE, but inexpensive hardware is only part of the equation. One reason Chromebooks have succeeded in education is because of Chrome OS, which is well-suited for lower-end hardware, easy for IT administrators to manage, and hard to break with errant apps or malware. Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS is Windows 11 SE. Unlike past efforts like Windows in S mode (which is still its own separate thing), Windows 11 SE isn't just a regular version of Windows with a cheaper license or a cut-down version that runs fewer apps. Windows 11 SE defaults to saving all files (including user profile information) to students' OneDrive accounts, and it has had some standard Windows 11 features removed to ensure a "distraction-free" learning environment that performs better on low-end devices. The operating system also gives IT administrators exclusive control over the apps and browser extensions that can be installed and run via Microsoft Intune.

If you're a school IT administrator with a fleet of PC laptops or desktops, you might wonder if you can buy and install Windows 11 SE on hardware you already have so you can benefit from its changes without buying new hardware. The answer, Microsoft tells us, is no. The only way to get Windows 11 SE is on laptops that ship with Windows 11 SE. And if you re-image a Windows 11 SE device with a different version of Windows 10 or Windows 11, it won't even be possible to reinstall Windows 11 SE after that. [...] Microsoft has published documentation (PDF) that more fully explains the differences between Windows 11 SE and the other editions of Windows (including Windows in S mode).

Google launched a beta app today that people with speech impairments can use as a voice assistant while contributing to a multiyear research effort to improve Google's speech recognition. From a report: The goal is to make Google Assistant, as well as other features that use speech to text and speech to speech, more inclusive of users with neurological conditions that affect their speech. The new app is called Project Relate, and volunteers can sign up at g.co/ProjectRelate. To be eligible to participate, volunteers need to be 18 or older and "have difficulty being understood by others." They'll also need a Google account and an Android phone using OS 8 or later. For now, it's only available to English speakers in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They'll be tasked with recording 500 phrases, which should take between 30 to 90 minutes to record.

Microsoft is going head to head with Chromebooks with a new $249 Surface Laptop SE, its most affordable Surface yet. While the software giant has attempted to compete with the popularity of Chrome OS in US schools for years, the Surface Laptop SE is the company's first true Chromebook competitor. From a report: Surface Laptop SE will be sold exclusively to schools and students, starting at $249. It's part of a much broader effort with Windows 11 SE, a new student edition designed to compete with Chrome OS that will ship on a range of low-cost laptops in the coming months. Surface Laptop SE is every bit the low-cost Windows device you'd expect to see for $249.

While it retains the same keyboard and trackpad found on Microsoft's Surface Laptop Go, the all-plastic body houses an 11.6-inch display running at just a 1366 x 768 resolution. This is the first 16:9 Surface device in more than seven years, after Microsoft switched to 3:2 for its Surface line with the Surface Pro 3 launch in 2014. The screen looks like the biggest drawback on this device, particularly as we weren't fans of the low-resolution screen (1536 x 1024) found on the $549 Surface Laptop Go. Lenovo's Chromebook Duet ships with a better 10.1-inch (1920 x 1200) display for the same $249 price as the Surface Laptop SE. Intel's Celeron N4020 or N4120 power the Surface Laptop SE, combined with 4GB / 8GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of eMMC storage.

Microsoft has announced a new edition of Windows 11 designed specifically for the K-8 education sector, dubbed "Windows 11 SE." This new edition of Windows 11 is designed to address fundamental challenges that schools are facing day to day with improved performance, optimized resources, and simple to deploy and manage. From a report: Microsoft says Windows 11 SE has been optimized for education focused low-cost PCs, most of which start at the affordable price of $249 and are powered by low-end Intel and AMD chips. Windows 11 SE was designed with feedback from teachers and school IT admins in mind. Unlike normal Windows 11, Windows 11 SE comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Office out of the box, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and OneDrive, which can also be used offline as part of a Microsoft 365 license.

Microsoft has also limited some of the multitasking features, including reducing the amount of apps that can be snapped on screen at once to just two; side by side. The Microsoft Store app is also disabled. Windows 11 SE also automatically runs apps in full-screen, which makes sense considering most Windows 11 SE PCs will feature small 11-inch displays. It also removes access to the "This PC" area in File Explorer by default, as it's an area most students don't need to access when working on school work. Windows 11 SE is "cloud backed" meaning it will mirror all your saved documents stored locally to the cloud.

Phoronix reports: System76's Pop!_OS Linux distribution already has their own "COSMIC" desktop that is based on GNOME, but moving ahead they are working on their own Rust-written desktop that is not based on GNOME or any existing desktop environment.

Stemming from a Reddit discussion over the possibility of seeing a KDE flavor of Pop!_OS, it was brought up by one of their own engineers they are working on their "own desktop". System76 engineer and Pop!_OS maintainer Michael Murphy "mmstick" commented that System76 will be its own desktop. When further poked about that whether that means a fork from GNOME, the response was "No it is its own thing written in Rust."

Word of System76 making their "own" desktop not based on GNOME does follow some recent friction between Pop!_OS and GNOME developers over their approach to theming and customizations.
Or, as Murphy wrote (in response to a later comment): What are you expecting us to do? We have a desktop environment that is a collection of GNOME Shell extensions which break every GNOME Shell release. Either we move towards maintaining tens of thousands of lines of monkey patches, or we do it the right way and make the next step a fully fledged desktop environment equal to GNOME Shell.
In other comments Murphy clarified that essentially the gist of it would be an independent/distro-agnostic desktop environment, and that they'd be "using tooling that already exists (mutter, kwin, wlroots), but implementing the surrounding shell in Rust from scratch..." And he added later that "We already do our best to follow freedesktop specifications with our software. So there's no reason to think we'd do otherwise."

One of the most interesting exchanges happened when one long-time Reddit user questioned the need for another desktop. That user had posted, "Linux is great, choices are great, but our biggest problem is that in the pursuit of choices for the sake of choices we have a ton of projects that are 95% of the way to prime time readiness, but none that are fully there, because instead of fixing problems, everyone decides they just want to start over."

Murphy responded: "You have it backwards. Choice is the best part about open source. None of us would be here today if people weren't brave enough to take the next step with a new solution to an existing problem..."

Microsoft has started warning Windows 11 users that certain features in the operating system are failing to load due to an expired certificate. The certificate expired on October 31st, and Microsoft warns that some Windows 11 users aren't able to open apps like the Snipping Tool, touch keyboard, or emoji panel. From a report: A patch is available to fix some of the issues, but it's currently in preview, meaning you have to install it manually from Windows Update. The patch, KB4006746, will fix the touch keyboard, voice typing, emoji panel, and issues with the getting started and tips sections of Windows 11. You'll be able to find this patch by checking for updates in the Windows Update section of Settings in Windows 11. Microsoft's patch doesn't address the problems with the Snipping Tool app, though. "To mitigate the issue with Snipping Tool, use the Print Screen key on your keyboard and paste the screenshot into your document," recommends Microsoft. "You can also paste it into Paint to select and copy the section you want."

Phoronix ran some fun performance tests this week. "Now that Windows 11 has been out as stable and the initial round of updates coming out, I've been running fresh Windows 11 vs. Linux benchmarks for seeing how Microsoft's latest operating system release compares to the fresh batch of Linux distributions." First up is the fresh look at the Windows 11 vs. Linux performance on an Intel Core i9 11900K Rocket Lake system... The Windows 11 performance was being compared to all of the latest prominent Linux distributions, including:

- Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
- Ubuntu 21.10
- Arch Linux (latest rolling)
- Fedora Workstation 35
- Clear Linux 35150

[...] Each operating system was cleanly installed and then run at its OS default settings for seeing how the out-of-the-box OS performance compares for these five Linux distributions to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro...

The geometric mean for all 44 tests showed Linux clearly in front of Windows 11 for this current-generation Intel platform. Ubuntu / Arch / Fedora were about 11% faster overall than Windows 11 Pro on this system. Meanwhile, Clear Linux was about 18% faster than Windows 11 and enjoyed about 5% better performance overall than the other Linux distributions.
Out of 44 tests, here's a breakdown of how many first-place wins were scored by each OS:

• Clear Linux: 33 (75%)
• Fedora Workstation 35: 4 (9.1%)
• Windows 11 Pro: 3 (6.8%)
• Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS: 2 (4.5%)
• Arch Linux: 1 (2.3%)
• Ubuntu 21.10: 1 (2.3%)

Google and top Indian telecom network Jio Platforms said on Friday that their much-anticipated budget smartphone, JioPhone Next, will go on sale in the world's second largest smartphone market on November 4. From a report: The firms said the JioPhone Next will cost 6,499 Indian rupees ($87), and can also be purchased in multiple instalments with an entry price as low as $27. The smartphone runs Pragati OS, which is powered by an "extremely optimized" Android mobile operating system with a range of customized feature. The two firms also revealed the specifications of the JioPhone Next. The smartphone features a 5.45-inch HD+ display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It is powered by Qualcomm's quad-core QM-215 chipset that clocks up to 1.3GHz, coupled with 2GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage, which is expandable.

Phoronix: Now that Windows 11 has been out as stable and the initial round of updates coming out, I've been running fresh Windows 11 vs. Linux benchmarks for seeing how Microsoft's latest operating system release compares to the fresh batch of Linux distributions. First up is the fresh look at the Windows 11 vs. Linux performance on an Intel Core i9 11900K Rocket Lake system. Microsoft Windows 11 Pro with all stable updates as of 18 October was used for this round of benchmarking on Intel Rocket Lake. The Windows 11 performance was being compared to all of the latest prominent Linux distributions, including: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, Arch Linux (latest rolling), Fedora Workstation 35, Clear Linux 35150. All the testing was done on the same Intel Core i9 11900K test system at stock speeds (any frequency differences reported in the system table come down to how the information is exposed by the OS, i.e. base or turbo reporting) with 2 x 16GB DDR4-3200 memory, 2TB Corsair Force MP600 NVMe solid-state drive, and an AMD Radeon VII graphics card.

Each operating system was cleanly installed and then run at its OS default settings for seeing how the out-of-the-box OS performance compares for these five Linux distributions to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. But for the TLDR version... Out of 44 tests run across all six operating systems, Windows 11 had just three wins on this Core i9 11900K system. Meanwhile Intel's own Clear Linux platform easily dominated with coming in first place 75% of the time followed by Fedora Workstation 35 in second place with first place finishes 9% of the time. The geometric mean for all 44 tests showed Linux clearly in front of Windows 11 for this current-generation Intel platform. Ubuntu / Arch / Fedora were about 11% faster overall than Windows 11 Pro on this system. Meanwhile, Clear Linux was about 18% faster than Windows 11 and enjoyed about 5% better performance overall than the other Linux distributions.

An indie developer has found an interesting observation: Though only 5.8% of his game's buyers were playing on Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. Not because the Linux platform was buggier, either. Only 3 of the roughly 400 bug reports submitted by Linux users were platform specific, that is, would only happen on Linux. PC Gamer reports: The developer, posting as Koderski for developer Kodera Software on Reddit, makes indie game [Delta] V: Rings of Saturn -- that's Delta V, or DV, for the non-rocket-science-literate. [...] Koderski says he's sold a little over 12,000 copies of his game, and about 700 of those were bought by Linux players. "I got 1040 bug reports in total, out of which roughly 400 are made by Linux players," says Koderski's post. "That's one report per 11.5 users on average, and one report per 1.75 Linux players. That's right, an average Linux player will get you 650% more bug reports." Koderski's numbers are a limited sample size drawn from one person's experience, but tell a compelling story.

Koderski also says that very few of those bugs were specific to Linux, being clear that "This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone." The bug reports themselves were also pretty high quality, he said, including software and OS versions, logs, and steps for replication. Multiple commenters on the post chalked this up to the kind of people who use Linux: Software professionals, IT employees, and engineers who would already be familiar with official bug reporting processes. It's a strong theory as to why this might be, though the sheer passion that the gaming on Linux community has for anyone who supports their favorite hobby may be another.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Windows XP, and although the operating system reached the end of support in 2014, way too many people continue to use the insecure version of Windows. BleepingComputer reports: Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001, and is considered one of the most loved versions of Windows due to its ease of use, fast performance, and stability. Today, after Microsoft has released Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11, a small but respectable number of people are still using the old operating system. This continued usage is a testament to its success but also raises concerns regarding its lack of security. [...] According to StatCounter, the percentage of Windows users using the XP version of the OS in September 2021 is 0.59%, a significant number when you consider how many Windows systems are deployed worldwide. One very notable case is that of Armenia, where Windows XP is the most popular OS, enjoying a share of 53.5% among Windows users.

Mainstream support for Windows XP ended on April 14, 2009, with extended support lasting another five years. This means that anyone still running Windows XP has not received support from Microsoft for roughly 7.5 years now, including almost all security updates and fixes for vulnerabilities that may have been discovered. That's a massive amount of time in tech and more than enough to render the operating system a security nightmare with likely a large number of unpatched vulnerabilities. While Microsoft has backported fixes for some of the more serious vulnerabilities in Windows XP, such as EternalBlue and BlueKeep, there are many more vulnerabilities that threat actors could exploit. This makes connecting a Windows XP device to the Internet a risky proposition and why all security professionals recommend users upgrade to a supported version of Windows.

The latest version of macOS, Monterey, is now available to download, according to Apple. The software has been available in public beta for several months, but today's release means Apple thinks the software is ready for everyday use. From a report: As is tradition, Apple announced its latest version of macOS at WWDC in June. New features include the ability to set Macs as an AirPlay target to play content from iPhones and iPads, as well as Shortcuts, Apple's iOS automation software. There have also been improvements made to FaceTime, as well as a new Quick Note feature. For a full rundown of what's on the way, check out our preview from July, as well as Apple's own feature list.

Unfortunately, some of Monterey's biggest new additions, Universal Control and SharePlay, don't seem to be available at launch. Apple notes that both features will be available "later this fall." Universal Control allows files to be dragged and dropped between several different machines, as Apple's Craig Federighi demonstrated at WWDC. It also will let you control multiple Apple devices including Macs, MacBooks, and iPads, with the same mouse and keyboard. SharePlay will enable shared experiences of music, TV shows, movies, and more while connected over FaceTime. Once it's available, Apple says you can use the feature with Apple Music, Apple TV+ and unnamed "popular third-party services." It's better news when it comes to Safari's redesign, which by default now uses a more traditional interface rather than the controversial new tab design introduced at WWDC.