1. For the software review go to [Link: remotecentral.com]
2. Sorry, I don't even know what windows ME is. Other people have used it with Windows 2000 and Windows 98.
3. Your sequence sounds ok but I would add a couple of safety checks:
a. Copy the default model (default.mdl) to another name and play with that as your starting design. (When you run the pc software it will bring up this model)
b. Try to move buttons around on the screen as little as possible. Changing the button styles and deleting buttons is ok. Adding text is ok. But if you drop buttons on top of each other or possibly even move them ACROSS each other, they may "clone" each other (when you teach one button a command the other will learn it also and vice versa) even after you separate them.
c. Download the model you created.
d. Use the preprogrammed codes if you wish for each device, but these are really only useful for the hard keys.
e. Teach all the non-preprogrammed keys.
f. Test your keys and be sure one key did not "clone" another key. These will usually be side by side or one on top of the other. If you were careful when creating the screens, this won't happen. If it does happen, delete one of the buttons on the remote itself, then insert it and add text and relearn it.
g. Do the macros.
h. Upload the "learned program" to your pc. This seems to work ok and is a good backup to have.
i. If you made any changes to the screens, upload that (operating program) as well. Give it a different name in case the upload fails or corrupts the file.
j. If you have trouble downloading see the Thread from Mike Gilford re. communication settings on your pc. (I think it's called Upload/Download problems or something like that)

One WARNING! A few people (I don't think recently) had the download fail and it erased the memory of the remote. Eventually they got the download working but in the meantime had an empty remote. Hopefully that is a slight risk and has been fixed since then. You might try uploading first just to be sure the basic communication between your pc and remote is ok. There is no harm in this. Upload the operating program to a unique file name and try loading it with the software to see how it looks. If you get communications failures after several attempts, that is not a good sign. In that case, you might want to consider the risks of downloading.