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Release of ReactOS 0.4 Brings Open Source Windows Closer to Reality

posted by martyb on Wednesday February 17 2016, @07:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the making-progress dept.
ReactOS is a free and open source implementation of the Windows NT architecture, which intends to provide support for existing applications and drivers, outside of the control of Microsoft. The release of ReactOS 0.4 brings improved file system support, including native, out-of-the-box support for ext2, ext3, and ext4, as well as read-only support for NTFS. Additionally, the bundled version of UniATA was updated to add better support for SATA and PATA devices. Support was generally improved for third-party device drivers, making it substantially easier to install and use real hardware, as opposed to just virtual machines like VirtualBox.

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  • (Score: 2) by Rich on Thursday February 18 2016, @01:41AM

    by Rich (945) on Thursday February 18 2016, @01:41AM (#306076) Journal

    I'd assume there's lots of appliances running historic Windows versions. Particularly "Windows Embedded POSReady 2009", which effectlvely is XP SP3, might be a target for that. If there's an appliance doing one thing, and it does it with ReactOS, but not with "Windows Embedded POSReady 7" (or is just cheaper with ReactOS), they might get a foot into the door.

    Not long ago, I have consulted for a customer with an industrial solution stuck on W2K that wouldn't even work properly under XP. I was part of a task force to figure out what could be done to be able to continue with the product. In the end, none of the "proper" re-engineering suggestions was chosen; the software was just stuck into a virtual machine that still would run W2K on modern hardware.

    I'd imagine that ReactOS could be made to fit in such situations and save the hassle with 2 Windows versions and one virtual machine to support while being (past the initial effort) at zero cost.

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