![]() It must have been about that time that all of Microsoft's developers got SSDs on their desk (I'm only half joking). Vista leaned a lot more heavily on disk I/O that its predecessors, so turning off Windows Search, and a few other things I forget made it tolerable to use. The machines sold as Vista-capable weren't all that great with XP, but better, so were even under-powered for the previous generation. So much so, that I could use a Vista 64-bit machine as an alternative to Windows 7 if it were still supported. I used two sets of Vista machine, the 32-bit machines were almost all terribly slow, the 64-bit machines were surprisingly capable. Here are the names of the 75 programmers that have worked on ReactOS: My hat is off to the ReactOS developers, and congratulations on the latest release. This is one of the most important software projects in history. So many untold man-hours of thankless work going into the project, and the vast majority of that "hard" work with no payoff for years.Īnd now it's finally getting close to actual Windows, after decades of work, and soon (well, years, but still) people will be using it everywhere as a replacement for Windows. Meanwhile, work keeps going on in the background. And the second-hand stories I've heard about people who did install React was basically "I was bored, I put it on a drive, played around for 5 minutes, and wiped it."īut that doesn't discourage them. Hell, I have never seen a ReactOS installation in the wild, and I'm the kind of person whose friends install Haiku, Nix and NetBSD as their daily drivers. There were people working on this two decades ago, putting in tiny fixes and little bits of code and whatnot, and they did it even knowing that basically nobody would see their work for decades. The 0.4.0 release aims to improve compatibility with USB devices, simplify connecting to WiFi networks and improve sound support a final release date is not available.This has been one of my favorite software projects to watch, because it's such an insanely monumental undertaking and moves so damn slowly. ![]() As older apps break on newer versions of Windows, for example, ReactOS could become the go-to system for running them. Even if they never achieve full compatability with all current Windows app, which is a fast-moving target, ReactOS could wind up being useful in ways that are hard to predict. It might seem quixotic, but the ReactOS team keep pushing themselves to build a free version of Windows almost from scratch. Users have tested it, uploading videos of programs they’ve managed to make work (and some they haven’t). The project’s homepage claims it’s only “recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes. Diablo II, for example, is a game released in 2000 that apparently “installs fine” but “doesn’t run past character selection.” Videos show web-based software, like GOG’s online store, fail to work to varying degrees.ĮactOS isn’t ready to be your primary operating system. So are a few prominent Windows-only programs, ike WinRAR.īut that’s not to say everything is working. It notes the Windows versions of many open-source stalwarts, including Firefox and Libre Office, are already up and running. ![]() In theory this could be revolutionary, but in practice rebuilding Windows from scratch isn’t simple.įor evidence of this you need only look at the list of programs tested on ReactOS 0.4. ReactOS has always been unique because of its goal –full compatibility with Windows software. There are plenty of free, open source operating systems on the market, including hundreds of Linux distributions. ReactOS, an operating built from scratch to be binary-compatible with Windows programs and drivers, is nearing its 0.4 release - you can download the release candidate right now. The dream of an open source replacement for Windows is still alive after 17 years of development.
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