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ReactOS 0.4.2 Released: Supports Linux Filesystems, .NET Applications, and Doom 3 (reactos.org)
Continuing its rapid release cycle, ReactOS has unveiled version 0.4.2 of its free "open-source binary-compatible Windows re-implementation." Slashdot reader jeditobe reports that this new version can now read and write various Linux/Unix file systems like Btrfs and ext (and can read ReiserFS and UFS), and also runs applications like Thunderbird and 7-Zip.
ReactOS 0.4.2 also features Cygwin support, .NET 2.0 and 4.0 application support, among other updated packages and revised external dependencies such as Wine and UniATA. The team also worked to improve overall user experience...
ReactOS is free. You can boot your desktop or laptop from it. It looks like Windows (a 10-year-old version, anyway), so you already know how to use it. And it'll run some Windows and DOS applications, maybe including DOS games that regular 64-bit Windows can no longer touch. These videos even show ReactOS running Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Doom 3.
ReactOS is free. You can boot your desktop or laptop from it. It looks like Windows (a 10-year-old version, anyway), so you already know how to use it. And it'll run some Windows and DOS applications, maybe including DOS games that regular 64-bit Windows can no longer touch. These videos even show ReactOS running Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Doom 3.
...can it run Crysis?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Why is this news? How does this affect anyone? I don't use ReactOS. Nobody I know uses ReactOS. Why should I care? How does this affect me? Of course, the answer is that it doesn't affect me at all. Now, I know that this post will annoy the moderators, who will promptly censor me to -1. However, that's so they can pretend to not see this post because they don't want to admit that nobody uses or cares about ReactOS and that this doesn't matter at all? Can anyone tell me why this matters? I think not!
A few quick Google searches for Windows internal details is enough to find non-public source code blatantly ripped off from MS and pasted verbatim into reactos. The boys in Redmond will have no trouble shutting down this project should they ever feel so inclined.
I tried doing the same thing, didn't work. I can't even get Skyrim to work that nicely in VMware Workstation with Windows let alone ReactOS in VirtualBox...
For the longest time, article after article of slow progress I did not even think the developers took this seriously beyond beyond some coding fun. Color me impressed. This might take off in a few years. Now that I think of it, I am reminded of another OS that was relegated "maybe someday".
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
since "It looks like Windows (a 10-year-old version, anyway)" then it looks just like modern windows 10? (puke)
I think you mean over 16 year old.
10 year ago we were well into Windows XP's lifecycle and unless you were one of those weirdo that purposefully changed the luna theme for that old win98 theme because it was "faster", no one saw that in a long time.
Way to be on the ball, Slashdot! From their web site: "Release Date: 16 August 2016"
I guess it is a good thing I follow Distrowatch instead, since they generally have OS release announcements within 24 hours.
The only reason I keep a Windows 7 partition on my PC... if ReactOS can run it, I can go 100% FOSS operating systems.
Please make pro audio interfaces and midi work! If my audio stuff would work, this could save me from Windows 10.
Please!!!
I appreciate the irony of a ten year development project being in a "rapid release cycle" at version 0.42.
ReactOS 0.4.2 also features Cygwin support
That's pretty much all I need in an OS :)
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Tired of forced upgrades to Windows 10? Tired of not being able to select the patches to install? Tired of patches breaking entire classes of hardware and application? Kick these guys some money or contribute some of your skill and time. Linux is great for apps that have a FOSS alternative. But sometimes you just need Windows. This should be a priority for PCs everywhere.
I mean, what is the point behind developing a new version of Windows to run old software if you can't run Bob?
>"It looks like Windows (a 10-year-old version, anyway), so you already know how to use it."
Really? What if you have been using Linux pretty much exclusively for a few decades? :)
There have been leaks of Microsoft Windows code.
Stick with Linux. BSD if you are smart.
Can M$ use these API retroactively against the devs?
I would be so very grateful to the ReactOS community if I could run Office (2007 is fine), Zotero and some version of SolidWorks on it. I don't even dare to install ReactOS to try, as the disappointment would be crushing. Basically, I hope to not be forced to install Windows 10.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Why don't they do a 64-bit or 128-bit extension of NTFS, and make that their native file system. Make it backward compatible to support reading NTFS files & directories, and a way to write those as well? At least that way, it's a way out for people trying to flee Microsoft, but who are not comfortable w/ Linux, BSD or Apple
This is a cute project but it still doesn't do anything.
It can't even run applications installed through its own application manager.
When I installed Firefox using the built in application manager, the OS froze, then after a reset it wouldn't boot.
Yet it can only boot from FATshit
It is nice and all to keep me from spending $100 every 2-3 years on a new OS. But that's not where the money is. Active Directory and Client Access Licenses are the money makers. Too much money. When ReactOS performs in the server space, then my pants will get tight over the new version.
It could do for old Win16/32 apps what DOSbox did for old DOS apps, letting users and commercial vendors run their old software on modern hardware.
Twinstiq, game news
What generation?
Last time I tried either the livecd or boot cd on real hardware it didn't boot on either of my modern systems. I managed to get it to install on a *REAL* Pentium, but it would freeze at some point during boot.
Additionally, having attempted to run it on *REAL* 440FX/BX hardware, it didn't boot on either, as recently as some of the 0.4 daily dev releases. Never had a problem with it in qemu however, but if I'm running qemu I can just as easily run a real copy of windows inside of it.
Anyone else have similiar experiences?
Microsoft killed their Windows platform starting with Windows 8. It has been downhill from there. Windows 10 won't be on any of my machines, if I can help it. I would gladly jump to ReactOS.
Do people care enough about this OS to throw donations their way? The download page says they could hire more people if they had funding.
Actually you can get a windows read-only source licence from microsoft. It is available for educational and military institutions.
Google WRK aka windows research kernel
It makes sense that there is no sound in that video of Skyrim on ReactOS. After all sound drivers are how the Asians spy on our computers. If it was the NIC I would blame the Brits.
Does not lay within it's technical capabilities and prowess, but with it's management skills and ability to create a community.
For years I've been a fan of ReactOS, actively participating and contributing to the community, albeit not in the form of a coder. Which, in the (still) current ReactOS mentality, is the only thing that counts for the brass, apparently. Testing ReactOS on a dedicated real-life machine (thus, not in VM), debugging, translating, making info-pages on their wikipedia: nothing really matters to the 'elite' of ReactOS. They just consider you some sort of fodder, and the moment you ask for a bit more transparency (on their financial side, for instance), or try to address the complete lack of community involvement, they bork (and bark) at you - and worse. Time and again I've tried to explain this in the past, that a successful project is NOT merely depended on the technical/coder side of things, but also how you establish a community, and try to involve people in your project. There were some half-baked trials at it, but those were mere lipservice, where it was always a consideration of a top-down approach, not a bottom-up way of seeing things.
Ergo; in the 20 years of their project, they have not succeeded in gathering 1/100th of the community that other projects like Linux have. Again and again I've pointed this out to them, but to no avail. They just refuse to see it, and only want things done strictly to their wishes, with their attitude of finding no other (real) importance to the project than 'code'. Which, granted, is an important part, but which will NOT get you a lively, engaging, and growing community - which is an absolute necessity for any open source project to know success. Eventually, since I kept hitting that nail, they got annoyed (not: they realised the error of their ways) and kicked me out too, the so many-th person who was a tester/sponsor/translator/helper of ReactOS they managed to drive away.
Whatever; so I went away, which is what they wanted. But what did it help them, then? Nothing at all. They view constructive criticism as a threat, not as an opportunity to better themselves and the project. They don't value anything someone does outside of their little constraints, and outside their preconceived notions as to what they see as important, yet have the mouth full of 'community-involvement'. Whatever you do, how many years you may have sponsored or helped out as a non-coder, you just are not counted as having done anything worthwhile. They have no inkling of an idea how to get a thriving community where you allow the bottom-up approach as well.
It's a sad thing to say, but the whole thing is run by people with overblown ego's, trying to protect their little turf and egotistical whims, ignoring anyone else, and being autistically elitist in wanting to decide virtually everything to the minute detail. Its only a community-project in name, but not in essence. And that's why, even after 20 years of operation, their project is just a small-scale project who - in comparison with other projects - has almost nothing to show for. They make some small technical progress year after year, that's true, but they fail to realise how much their ego-driven top-down approach has muffled the project to achieve the grandeur and support it could have had, had the top been more prone to some input from the people actually supporting it.
I've poured hundreds of dollars in it, and spend years on it helping them in my own way, only to kicked out when I pointed out their mistakes and lack of transparency. I still lie, the project, but I can not, in good conscience, support (most of) the people running that program/project. they've done it with me, as they've done it with dozens of people: it's no surprise, thus, that they're still at the small scale they are, without any community to speak off. They can't get any traction, because they kill off everything that would get them traction. There are some good coders under them, to be sure, but almost all of them lack the ma
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
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That is what Windows XP should've kept since the very beginning. Fuck Luna and the trend of rounded corners and gradients at that era.
Not trolling, genuinely asking - I'm not a programmer, but in the Free Software Movement I've always heard that Windows code was a mess and Windows is an example of awful architectural design. So, what is the point in making a free version of it rather than bettering Wine or PlayOnLinux?