Windows user finds Windows 98 start banner inside Windows ME
Good old re-used assets
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Windows user finds Windows 98 start banner inside Windows ME: Windows ME, or millennium edition, is the successor to Windows 98 and was released in 2000. And it appears that Microsoft may have forgotten to scrub the traces of Windows 98 out of ME entirely, as a Reddit user has discovered the 98 start menu banner inside Windows ME’s core files.
A Reddit user by the name of gtagrandtheftautov reported the find in the r/windows subreddit, with an accompanying image.
It’s not uncommon for developers to leave assets of a previous version inside the current version of a piece of software. If it was illegal, we’d only have about three Fifa games. Not to mention Call of Duty.
Windows ME
However, Windows ME was much more than just a simple re-skin of Windows 98. This is because Microsoft stripped the newer Windows ME of a lot of DOS functionality. Windows 98 includes MS-DOS 7.1, while Windows ME includes a stripped-down version of MS-DOS called “MS-DOS Mode”, which is used to run older DOS-based applications.
Along with the stripped DOS functionality, Windows ME did not boot into DOS before loading into the OS as Windows 98 did, but they are both still based on DOS fundamentally.
Windows ME was intended to be a more stable version of Windows 98, with features like System File Protection and Automatic System Recovery to help prevent crashes and data loss. However, many users found that Windows ME was actually less stable than Windows 98, and it gained a reputation for being buggy and unreliable.
So much so that Windows ME was only supported until December 2003 whereas Windows 98 was officially supported by Microsoft until July 2006. This means that if you’re using either operating system today, you’re on your own when it comes to getting updates and support. But the vast difference in support times shows just how badly received Windows ME was.
It’s really cool to find little relics of the past in newer versions of software. This is especially true when they are discovered almost 23 whole years after the product hit the shelves. Have you discovered any software relics of the past? Let us know down below!
