This is kind of long. We have two computers in our house, so I'm writing this off of mine. My husband has an old gateway with Windows ME on it. We bought it from a friend, so we don't own any of the disks for it. Anyway the computer was packed with 516 viruses, ranging from spyware, to adware. I installed a program that removed the problems from the computer, then restarted it at the prompt. (I did all this in regular mode) When I restarted it it went through the normal start up mode showing windows then gateway, but then it went to a black screen. After that it popped up with a blue screen that said that "An exception OE has occured at 0028:C163F082 in VxD. It said it may be possible to continue normally, press any key to attempt to continue, or press ctrl,atl,delete. Well it wouldn't do anything if you push the first one, or the otherone. At this point I have to manually shut the computer down improperly. It goes through the same process but pops up a black screen with 4 options one being normal, another safe mode, and so on. I wont let me do anything but safe mode, but when I go into it, it starts the help and support. For some reaseon I can't get the internet to work, so I can't get help that way. It says I suppose to report an error message Num.2147143679. I can't get it out of safe mode, I can't get it to do anything. I have run the disk scan 10 times, but it says nothings wrong. Can someone please help me, I tried to be as thourough as possible. Sorry its so long.

i think ME has system restore. sometimes works sometimes not. unfortunately system restore is very likely to restore all the malware. i feel this is a case that the hard drive needs to be wiped and a new operating system. it is possible to purchase a copy of winME but it'll be expensive. (google purchase windows me) then there's the problem of gathering drivers.

Another thing when the blue screen pops up it says "An exception OE has occured at 0028:C163F082 in VxD ---. This was called from 0028:C140A32A in VxD VTDI(01) + 000000BA. It may ba possible to continue normally" This is where it gives you the option of pushing a key, or pushing ctrl, alt, delete, but once you get here you can't get the computer to do anything.
Thought I should explain that better.

system restore should run in safe mode. Start Menu, Accessories, System Tools

If the system restore won't work then as long as you have your license key (maybe on a sticker on the box?) you can obtain a CD and do a repair or reinstall. I don't think it's illegal to download a copy off the internet, only installing with a license key that isn't yours.

Failing that why not wipe it and install a copy Linux ? It's free, depending on which one you go for or last resort, buy another Operating System. (Don't get WinME if you have to buy one XP would be better )

Im with technohead on this one, you should have a CD key on your tower you can use.

If you decide to try a free operating system, Ubuntu is quite forgiving for the computer learner. Would be a step up from ME, wow that release had problems! My favourite error i had with ME was UNKNOWN has caused an error in UNKNOWN, please refer to application. Hilarious lol

hehe, WinMe definitely goes down in history for being one of the worst versions of windows released so far

However, once I found the wonderful utility called System Restore Remover Pro (i think thatswhat it was called anyway) it rocked. I removed a lot of the crap that you don't need like it's faulty system restore system and pc health rubbish. Once trimmed down, it was a lean machine

I ran it for a while as a gaming system and it was very nice indeed. Kinda modernized version of Win98 but with no DOS support and Windows2000-like WDM drivers. A hybrid creature by nature.

Techno has a great idea, I have done this on several older computers. You can pick up a copy of Windows 2000 dirt cheap with the key number-just check around, try EBay, etc., and it will run almost as fast as ME, yet you can have a modern, stable system which was the forerunner of XP.