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https://reactos.org/project-news/reactos-0415-released/
We are pleased to announce the release of ReactOS 0.4.15! This release offers Plug and Play fixes, audio fixes, memory management fixes, registry healing, improvements to accessories and system tools including Notepad, Paint, RAPPS, the Input Method Editor, and shell improvements.
We chose to release this version of ReactOS in honor of Eric Kohl's first commit to the ReactOS code base, which dates back to 1999.
[...]
0.4.15 was branched 6 months ago. Since then, many new and exciting features have been worked on in the master branch. UEFI support, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), a new graphical installer, a new NTFS filesystem driver, power management, and newer application support are just a few features being worked on. We are excited to share this journey with you as ReactOS improves and matures.
Previously on SoylentNews:
Watch: Mac OS X 10.4 Running in Windows Alternative ReactOS via PearPC Emulator - 20180510
Alternatives to Win32...Win32 of course! ReactOS still making progress.... - 20160828
Release of ReactOS 0.4 Brings Open Source Windows Closer to Reality - 20160217
Ask Soylent: Can We Turn ReactOS into a Viable Alternative to Windows 10? - 20151021
NTFS Now Supported in ReactOS LiveCD - 20141106
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Unixnut on Friday March 28 2025, @09:40AM (5 children)
I followed ReactOS almost since the start and always found it an interesting project, both from the point of view of seeing if they could in fact reverse engineer and create an open source version of Windows, and whether MS would tolerate this or go after them with a department of lawyers. So far it seems things have been quiet on that front, while they add more features and compatibility and get closer to a working OS.
While I doubt ReactOS will ever replace my Unix/Linux systems (just from an architecture design point of view I prefer the UNIX way) it is interesting to me if it allows me to run some old games and software. I still have windows 2000 and XP in virtual machines for such events, but if ReactOS can run the software then I'm happy to give that a go instead. Past attempts were not very successful on that front, but admittedly I last tried ReactOS 10 or more years ago, so perhaps time to try again.
I guess the wider question is whether ReactOS will ever be an alternative to proprietary Windows, especially as more and more remaining Windows users seem unhappy with the direction MS is taking the Windows OS. I guess it depends on how good ReactOS will work with new Windows software vs older stuff.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Friday March 28 2025, @09:47AM (2 children)
With things like WINE, do you need a whole Windows OS re-implementation? I got off the Windows treadmill in 1997. I went cold turkey. I've pottered about with WINE occasionally if someone tells me to run a Windows program to do something specific and it has often worked well enough. When things like LibreOffice came along, that reduced the need for WINE even further.
Microsoft is pushing Linux hard these days. Everything's WSL and Azure. Why would they continue to invest in Windows development long term?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Friday March 28 2025, @10:39AM
Some software will not work on Wine because it needs deeper hooks into the system and/or kernel. Likewise any software that has a hardware component or its own driver will not work on Wine.
Still ReactOS and Wine work very closely and collaborate, the userland of ReactOS is basically Wine, so any improvements between the two projects are shared.
From my perspective, I have software that runs better (or at all) on Windows in a VM than Wine (e.g. some Audio software), as well as old games, some that work on Wine and some that don't. So while I do have Wine installed and used occasionally, the XP VM is used more often.
Beyond that, a previous place I worked at still uses WinXP/2000 (and even Win 98!) heavily, because the robots they purchased decades ago only work with those OSes. You can't run on Wine because the software has custom drivers and HW to connect to the robots. Keeping those ancient OSes secure and reliable requires a lot of manpower and cost, so replacing it with something that is compatible, yet is still getting bugfixes and security updates (plus perhaps with some modern features like inbuilt firewalls) would be a good use case for ReactOS (if it ever reaches that point, which they seem to be trying to).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Friday March 28 2025, @03:53PM
Some things involve hardware drivers that aren't available outside of a Windows or OSX environment. From what I can tell, ReactOS can handle some regular windows drivers, albeit mostly older ones from XP/2003, which can make it a potential option for people that have older hardware that doesn't have drivers that work with newer versions of Windows.
I haven't loaded ReactOS in a while, I've pretty much always got a copy of Windows sitting around, but I think ti's probably about time that I did, just because of the horrible direction that MS is taking with 11 and the lack of any particular guarantees that copilot won't get more insistent about trying to trick people into allowing it to snoop.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Unixnut on Friday March 28 2025, @10:31AM (1 child)
FWIW I tried installing it, things I found out so far:
1. SMP initial install works fine, but when it reboots and starts to load the GUI installer the VM crashes. Reinstall with a single processor worked fine. So it looks like SMP support still needs some work.
2. It looks far more polished than the last time I used it, it actually looks usable, the theme is nice and you have multiple theme choices, including the "Classic" one which looks a bit like Win2000
3. The GUI application manager is a nice touch, allowing you to install (presumably) tested and known working versions of software (both open source and Windows-ecosystem freeware).
4. Sound works fine in VirtualBox
That is as far as I got at this point in time. I found some niggles, specifically:
1. The version of WinSCP in the application manager doesn't could not agree on a host key algorithm with my FreeBSD server (perhaps the version of WinSCP is too old?)
2. Virtualbox "shared folders" doesn't work, but I guess that is to be expected as I doubt Oracle bothered to implement it for ReactOS
As its been so many years since I ran anything Windows I actually don't have Samba set up at home, only NFS, so with the two options above not working I can't actually find a way right now to access my software archive and try some old games and software I have. I will tinker with it when I have more time in future. Although seeing the "Abyss web server" in the application manager was a nostalgia hit, that was the first web server I ever installed a quarter century ago and what started me on the road to learning web design/HTML and making my own websites.
Other things I've realised is that they still only target 32-bit Windows (Server 2003), specifically the win32 API. This means that they are not even aiming for modern Windows software support. As such as a project its main usefulness will be in replacing legacy Win200/XP/2003 systems that are still running but are otherwise without patches and updates, as well as for running software than needs more than the plain userland abstraction that Wine on *nix supports. This is probably why MS leaves them alone, they are not really in competition.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday April 02 2025, @10:45PM
I need to look at this new one. Previous ReactOS had some holes, but was to where if I had to, I could live with it.
My hosting won't speak to WinSCP5.x anymore either, but 6.x works -- same reason, I assume.
They're working on 64bit, but I gather that's a less-than-simple transition. Agreed that's going to be necessity.
Microsoft leaves them alone because React's code is adamantly clean-room, and I vaguely recall there's already been a lawsuit proving that.
A reproducible oddity:
Install ReactOS (whatever was 2 versions back) on random aging hardware.
Now install WinXP as a dual boot. (I did this to cross-test accessories and such.)
In this setup, WinXP actually uses less RAM than ReactOS (80mb vs 85mb). Conversely a normal standalone XP install on the same hardware uses 386mb (ever wonder if that was deliberate?). I think the difference is in what drivers are not installed, but.... why?? there's no visible difference.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.