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ReactOS 0.4.8 Released (osnews.com)
jeditobe shares a report from OSNews: With software specifically leaving NT5 behind, ReactOS is expanding its target to support NT6+ (Vista, Windows 8, Windows 10) software. Colin, Giannis and Mark are creating the needed logic in NTDLL and LDR for this purpose. Giannis has finished the side-by-side support and the implicit activation context, Colin has changed Kernel32 to accept software made for NT6+, and Mark keeps working on the shim compatibility layer. Although in a really greenish and experimental state, the new additions in 0.4.8 should start helping several software pieces created for Vista and upwards to start working in ReactOS. Microsoft coined the term backwards compatibility, ReactOS the forward compatibility one. Slashdot reader jeditobe adds: "A new tool similar to DrWatson32 has been created by Mark and added to 0.4.8, so now any application crashing will create a log file on the desktop. This crash dump details the list of modules and threads loaded, stack traces, hexdumps, and register state."
The announcement, general notes, tests, and changelog for the release can be found at their respective links. A less technical community changelog for ReactOS 0.4.8 is also available.
The announcement, general notes, tests, and changelog for the release can be found at their respective links. A less technical community changelog for ReactOS 0.4.8 is also available.
i tried ReactOS back in late 2017 (a version or two back) and it was junk, and to think i dug out a spare harddrive and wiped the data off for it, that was an hour of my time trying to get ReactOS running i will never get back
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I've followed this project on-and-off for years, in much the same way I've followed AROS.
But what the heck; I downloaded the ISO and set up a VMWare VM for it to install into.
The install was painless and fast; much better that Windows in that respect.
Once the desktop was up, it struggled with some device drivers. No biggie; it can run without sound.
The big problem came when installing software. This is supposed to be Windows XP compatible, so I dug out my VB6 disks. I loaded disk 1, double-clicked Setup, and instant bluescreen. Ok, not good... I rebooted, and the system would get to "Loading personal settings" and that was it: frozen. I could now not get past this screen ever.
ReactOS is interesting and I'm sure the developers are having a blast. But as a piece of functional software and a WIndows replacement: not so much.
Pass.
I tried a recent release and I was shocked at how far it's come since I first tried it many years ago. It's not perfect, but they've done an amazing job of getting the system to work with normal binaries in a reliable way. At least on the software I've tried.
The big problem though is that some required libraries can't be used as MS prohibits them from being used on other platforms, so .net programs can be an issue.