Gimp and 16bit (TIFF) (and WinME!) ?

Hi all,
for many years now my gimp1.2.3 has served well for all my needs :)
However, now that I have my first digital camera, I find that I need
something that will handle 16bit tiff (as produced by DCRAW in 16bit
linear mode),, and it is time for a gimp upgrade anyway !!
But I see that gimp no longer supports WinME :(

Two questions now arise :
(1) which, and where, is the last gimp version to support winme ?
(2) does that last winme version do 16bit ?
or was that 3 questions lol !?

What are my options,
do I need to upgrade to WinXP,
arrghh, I'd rather not !!
tia.






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