Microsoft Windows Me

2000, June 19

Windows Me (Millennium Edition), often capitalized as Windows ME, is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x line of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and then to retail on September 14, 2000. It was Microsoft's main operating system for home users until the introduction of its successor Windows XP on October 25, 2001.

Windows Me was targeted specifically at home PC users, and included Internet Explorer 5.5 (which could later be upgraded to Internet Explorer 6), Windows Media Player 7 (which could later be upgraded to Windows Media Player 9 Series), DirectX 7 (which could later be upgraded to DirectX 9) and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy to use for consumers; it is the last MS-DOS-based Windows version as all consumer versions starting with Windows XP moved to the Windows NT kernel. Microsoft also incorporated features first introduced in Windows 2000, which had been released as a business-oriented operating system seven months earlier, into the graphical user interface, shell and Windows Explorer. Although Windows Me was still ultimately based around MS-DOS like its predecessors, access to real-mode DOS was restricted to decrease system boot time.

Windows Me was initially positively received when it was released; however, it soon garnered a more infamous reputation from many users due to numerous stability problems. In October 2001, Windows XP was released to the public, having already been under development at the time of Windows Me's release, and incorporated most, but not all, of the features of Windows Me, while being far more stable.

Mainstream support for Windows Me ended on December 31, 2003, followed by extended support on July 11, 2006.