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BSODS, resources and Win Me. Microsoft’s “Domestic” operating system has a nasty bug, says Microsoft. David Dorn thinks that’s a great shame I don’t know what operating system you use. At one point or another, I’ve had most of Microsoft’s varying Oses running on the machines here at PPC Towers. Generally speaking, I get on with them OK – yes, there are odd peculiarities (I call them “funnies”) that spring up, but, generally, I can cope with them. It’s pretty much acknowledged that crashes are part and parcel of running Windows versions other than the NT-based ones (NT, Win 2000 and the forthcoming XP) – including Windows 95, 98, 98SE and now Me – the Millennium Edition. I get used to checking out the resources on my own machine, and I tend to show users with whom I have dealings on a regular basis how to do that, too. As a general rule, if my resources are much below 50%, I reboot – usually when I go to stick the kettle on, so it doesn’t interfere with what I’m doing. Ok, then, often it’s an excuse to go and have a cuppa, and maybe a wander out into the sunshine (but then you are supposed to take regular breaks away from the screen to preserve both your eyesight and your sanity!). Either way, it means that my own machines tend to be rebooted a couple of times per day. Funnily enough, I’d begun to think of windows Me as being a tad more reliable in this respect than previous incarnations of the OS that I’d been using. I’d found that it didn’t need rebooting quite so often as Win 98 SE, which was a definite three-times-a-day job. One thing I had noticed, though, was that, frequently, my main machine, running Me, wouldn’t come back to life after the screen saver had kicked in and monitor blanked. Often, it’s a Big Red Switch job to get it back up and running. So, for a little test, I removed the machine’s hard disk and installed a new one with 98SE on it, to see whether the same problem resurfaced. Guess what – it didn’t. So, it looks like the recently discovered memory leakage problem is to blame for that little “funny”. Now, to me, that’s not a great big deal. I’ve got no problem clicking <start><shut down> <restart> when I leave the machine for any length of time. If, after all, the monitor is going to go into standby mode, I’m going to be away from the machine for a while – I’ve got it set to 45 minutes anyway. Given that a reboot takes maybe five minutes at the maximum (by the time Windows has loaded, Zone alarm, and all the other tools and toys that reside in my system tray), it’s no trouble and isn’t going to cause any harm. It’s the user that has to have his machine on all the time, in a work environment, that’s going to suffer most from this newly found hiccup. But then, the question has to be asked: What on earth is anyone using Windows Me in a critical work environment for anyway? Isn’t that what Windows 2000 is for? It’s an interesting question, and one I can’t really fathom an answer for, unless money’s involved somewhere along the line! Even so, here’s my tip for the day. If you’re using Windows Me, and you want to keep your sanity, do a reboot whenever you have to leave your machine for more than a couple of minutes. It’ll refresh the parts that Microsoft obviously can’t reach, and you’ll be happy in the knowledge that you’re working around a potentially nasty problem that they haven’t yet fixed. Let’s just hope that the download time for the fix, when they do sort it, isn’t too long, eh?
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