How to "upgrade" from Windows 2000 to Windows ME

[LinuxTester]

Hi. I'm a new member of this forum and I have a problem.
I have an vintage computer called HP Vectra VEi8.
It had Windows 2000 Professional on it but I wanted to upgrade it to Windows ME to make some movies on it.. edit videos... and stuff like this.
So... i burned in a CD-R an upgrade version of Windows ME. I searched a little bit and I saw that Windows 2000 is newer than Windows ME. I don't have another CD and I can't buy. Can someone tell me if I can upgrade? I could not find if Windows 2000 to Windows ME is possible. But I know that Windows ME to Windows 2000 is just impossible. So can anyone help me with this thing? I really like Windows ME from my testing on VMWare.

Best regards,
LinuxTester

 

[voyagerfan99]

Windows ME is garbage. Stick with 2000.

 

[beers]

Yeah, that's definitely not an upgrade.

You'll probably actually have better compatibility with 2k.

 

[LinuxTester]

As I said, I want Windows ME for making movies. Also, it is kinda better for me because it looks like Windows XP. If I could, I would just install Windows XP to it, ( i tried) but the motherboard is not compatible. Can I somehow bypass the BIOS settings so I can install Windows ME on Windows 2000 with upgrade edition?

Best regards,
LinuxTester

 

[johnb35]

Do you have a valid cd key for whatever OS you want to install? I doubt very seriously if a system that old could make movies, it won't have enough memory. It's not the bios that is stopping you from changing the OS. If you seriously want ME then you would need to wipe 2000 and install ME fresh. There is no upgrade from 2000 to ME, actually is a downgrade. 2000 is more like XP not ME.

 

[beers]

Facedesk, OP you could always just cut to the chase change your name to The Betamax King.....

Why don't you just video edit on your current rig? Any sort of encoding is going to take years on a P2.

 

[aldan]

i have an me cd still in the shrink wrap.if you can download a copy i will give you my key. i guess i could send you the whole thing by mail but dont know where you are.

 

[C4C]

i have an me cd still in the shrink wrap.if you can download a copy i will give you my key. i guess i could send you the whole thing by mail but dont know where you are.

I wonder if any collectors out there would pay up hahaha

But seriously, is there another machine you can get that'll run your movie making software that already has XP on it? Thrift stores tend to have old computers that work..

 

[Agent Smith]

I don't understand. You can't run video editing software on 2000?

 

[Geoff]

Are you talking about using Windows Movie Maker that came with Windows ME? That's not a reason to downgrade your OS, WMM, especially the version that came on Windows ME is horrible.

 

[voyagerfan99]

XP's wasn't any better either.

 

[spirit]

Hi. I'm a new member of this forum and I have a problem.
I have an vintage computer called HP Vectra VEi8.
It had Windows 2000 Professional on it but I wanted to upgrade it to Windows ME to make some movies on it.. edit videos... and stuff like this.
So... i burned in a CD-R an upgrade version of Windows ME. I searched a little bit and I saw that Windows 2000 is newer than Windows ME. I don't have another CD and I can't buy. Can someone tell me if I can upgrade? I could not find if Windows 2000 to Windows ME is possible. But I know that Windows ME to Windows 2000 is just impossible. So can anyone help me with this thing? I really like Windows ME from my testing on VMWare.

Best regards,
LinuxTester

OK 2000 actually came out several months before Me, but I think you'll find the reason that you cannot upgrade to Me if you stick the Windows Me CD in your PC and try to do it like that within Windows 2000 is because 2000's build number is higher than Me's making Windows believe that Me is older than 2000 which it isn't - or something to that effect (if memory serves me correctly).

What you need to do is format your hard disk and install Me fresh. Put your Me disc in the drive, reboot the machine, boot off the Me CD and then select Boot from CD and go through the process of wiping your hard drive and installing Me fresh. That will obviously delete everything so back up everything before you begin. I don't think it's possible to do an upgrade from 2000 to Me without wiping and starting fresh.

Windows Me was crap by the way.

 

[LinuxTester]

I don't understand. You can't run video editing software on 2000?

I can't find any movie editing software for 2000 and the ones I found say that are going to run faster on Windows ME. I also want ME because it has built-in Movie Maker but 2000 doesn't.

OK 2000 actually came out several months before Me, but I think you'll find the reason that you cannot upgrade to Me if you stick the Windows Me CD in your PC and try to do it like that within Windows 2000 is because 2000's build number is higher than Me's making Windows believe that Me is older than 2000 which it isn't - or something to that effect (if memory serves me correctly).

What you need to do is format your hard disk and install Me fresh. Put your Me disc in the drive, reboot the machine, boot off the Me CD and then select Boot from CD and go through the process of wiping your hard drive and installing Me fresh. That will obviously delete everything so back up everything before you begin. I don't think it's possible to do an upgrade from 2000 to Me without wiping and starting fresh.

Windows Me was crap by the way.

My friend says that if you change a registry key on 2000, you can run Windows ME Upgrade Edition's Setup.exe file with NO errors. I don't remember the path of the registry key, and what to change it to.

Are you talking about using Windows Movie Maker that came with Windows ME? That's not a reason to downgrade your OS, WMM, especially the version that came on Windows ME is horrible.

I also want Windows ME because... i don't know.. i like it better or something??
I like ME's UI better? I don't actually know that...

 

[beers]

A lot of those old OS you can just fresh install from the upgrade CD, I seem to remember ones like Windows 98 asking you to insert the CD for Windows 95 during installation to make sure you just had the product. I imagine it'd be a similar situation.

Just to clarify since you really don't get it, this is a giant waste of time and isn't going to work well for you. Really not sure how you can't grasp this.

You could probably PM "The VCR King" for help, you all have pretty similar ideas...

 

[spirit]

My friend says that if you change a registry key on 2000, you can run Windows ME Upgrade Edition's Setup.exe file with NO errors. I don't remember the path of the registry key, and what to change it to.

Maybe... but it'd be a waste of time because 2000 was better than Me anyway.

General rule of thumb - most stuff that's going to work on Me will also work on 2000 too. What video editing software were you planning to use on Me? I don't see why an older version of say Adobe Premiere Pro would work on Me but not 2000.

Speaking of Premiere Pro, I won't post a link because it might be against the rules because strictly speaking you did need to own a copy of the product to do this and before they made it available to everybody to download, but last year Adobe shut down the activation servers for CS2 and subsequently released all CS2 products for free. You can download them for free from their site - Google it. You could download Premiere Pro CS2, run it in 2000 and see what you think. CS2 should work on 2000.

 

[Havoc]

This would not be an upgrade but a down grade..And I believe you will have all kinds of problems..

 

[StrangleHold]

Doesn't matter which one is newer as far as a upgrade. They were released for 2 different customers. ME was the new desktop consumer version, FAT32. 2000 was the professional/server/client version, NTFS. No upgrade path between either.

If you want ME that much. The upgrade had a full clean install. Just format the drive. Find a 98 CD. Start the ME install and it will just ask for a 95/98 CD. Pop it in, let the install verify it, pop it out and put the ME CD back in. You got a clean install of ME.

 

[pane-free]

Wow! That's an oldie!

Are these specs correct: PII processor and max of 512MB 168-pin RAM?

If so, you're marginal for even antiX 32-bit and one of these video editors.

Best wishes!

 

[LinuxTester]

Are you talking about using Windows Movie Maker that came with Windows ME? That's not a reason to downgrade your OS, WMM, especially the version that came on Windows ME is horrible.

Anyway, I don't actually know why, but this PC crashes after 10-20 minutes of PC Usage. I upgraded from Windows 98 to 2000. When it was on 98 there was NO problem. So, I don't want to downgrade, and I want to upgrade.

 

[Geoff]

Anyway, I don't actually know why, but this PC crashes after 10-20 minutes of PC Usage. I upgraded from Windows 98 to 2000. When it was on 98 there was NO problem. So, I don't want to downgrade, and I want to upgrade.

Upgrading from Windows 2000 would be going to Windows XP. If your computer crashes, it could be that you don't meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 2000.