Windows Me

Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (codenamed Millennium), was released in 2000 after Windows 98. It was based on the Windows 9x/DOS architecture and was often called the "home edition" of Windows 2000.

Windows ME was criticized for being unstable and the fact that Windows 2000, released earlier that year, was considered superior. One of the many factors causing instability was the 9x kernel, and the way it works: apps run all in the same memory layer, so if one crashes, the others crash too. Therefore, it is one of the least popular Windows releases, resulting in nicknames such as "Mistake Edition". It is the last version to use the Windows 9x kernel.

Development
Windows Me was an interim release, which sprang into being during the development of NT 5.0. It was created as a stopgap release, to keep consumers happy while a consumer NT release was finalized. It was developed by a small team and rushed to market, in order to coincide more or less with the release of Windows 2000. It was essentially designed to look and feel very similar to Windows 2000, while also using the old 9x kernel. The result was a buggy and unstable system, let down by the 9x kernel, which was increasingly showing its age.