Have to second Donny Dane on the drivers and ME. I think I posted this once
back when ME came out too.

ME grafted in a lot of Microsoft's NT OS in its kernel code. Err .. what
this means for those of you that don't develop OS's - if the driver
manufacturer had written drivers for Microsoft NT, then they had a BIG jump
on getting good drivers for Microsoft Windows ME.

Microsoft's windows kernel code is notoriously buggy (NT less so than 98),
as well, as per licensing agreements, they release documentation only at
certain levels of "partnership" (read you sign successively stronger
anti-compete clauses to get to learn which parts of MS's code works best).
So as well, larger companies who already signed these agreements will have
more documentation available. And if they signed said "partnerships" while
writing NT drivers - they'll have had good existing code that would take
little time to make into ME drivers of decent quality.

So for a consumer, if the company writing your drivers isn't big enough (or
oriented to MS enough) to have signed their "partnership" agreements - AS
WELL as having a large enough market to have had prior Windows NT drivers
for thier hardware ... don't even bother - stay in 98 SE.

- this message brought to you by a retired developer -