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ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

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Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#71

Post by SllX »

konschubert wrote: post #11

What Kernel does this OS use? What's its history? Is it a unix fork such as Linux?

The ReactOS kernel is their own, clean room reverse engineered to be compatible with the NT kernel.

Also just a side note, Linux isn't exactly a UNIX fork either. Linux was developed from scratch on a MINIX host, which in turn was another OS designed to be UNIX-compatible but did not actually use any UNIX code. To put it another way, it's Unix-like two generations removed, but definitely not something you could call a fork. That might seem like a small detail to you but SCO vs IBM says otherwise.

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#72

Post by digi_owl »

feikname wrote: post #60
digi_owl wrote: post #48

Tried the livecd in a VM and a couple of niggles sprang up. First of all, no driver for the network card in Virtualbox, though Vmware worked fine. Second, no web browser... Third, the mouse sometimes freaked out and got stuck in a corner.

It should be obvious enough, but perhaps you missed: you can install a browser, such as an old version of opera, by fetching its installer over the internet via ReactOS builtin "program downloader" (I do not remeber its name). If you meant lack of default browser preinstalled though, I agree with you its lacking. It's necessary to change the network card in VirtualBox for internet connection to work IIRC.

Ah, i missed the program downloader while poking around.

I'll take another look.

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#73

Post by andreiw »

bartread wrote: post #22
wensley wrote: post #18

Seen ReactOS pop up a few times and always thought it was something to do with the Facebook Javascript library. This is really amazing, I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Yeah, I've been confused too. The website itself doesn't help: no "About" or "What is ReactOS?" in the main nav. I ended up looking it up on Wikipedia to find out what it is: an open source OS that is intended to be binary compatible with Windows. This does actually ring a bell for me - I seem to remember mention of it very early in the century. That perhaps cuts to the heart of the issue: it's been going as a projec…

I bet in 20 years no one will know what ReactJS even is, but ReactOS very much will preserve NT regardless of Microsoft’s successes.

ReactOS is a usable Windows NT 6+ clone, with kernel ABI ( driver ) compat, that runs real software. What are you comparing it to, to be able to qualify the speed of its development?

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#74

Post by richard_todd »

One day when Windows drifts too far away from its golden age functionality, it will be great if ReactOS can fill the gap. However, I feel like MS could one-up them overnight by providing a sandboxed 32-bit XP VM as part of current windows. We’d get back DOS support and compatibility with old programs would be better. Call it Windows Subsystem for Windows or whatever. That would also pave the way to removing a lot of Win32 cruft from the main codebase, which MS seems very itchy to do.

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#75

Post by xenophonf »

bitL wrote: post #66
Lammy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you were trying to activate the OEM key on your netbook using retail media.

Yes, that's the case. Unfortunately, ASUS didn't provide installation media, just recovery media, which only works for their 4GB/12GB SSD combo and was failing operation when I tried it on a new SSD. So I tried regular XP Home ISO, but was out of luck.

I'm not a Windows licensing expert, but this is basically how it works:

1. You can't use the OEM license with retail installation media.

2. You don't get OEM installation media because the license is tied to the hardware.

3. The OEM recovery media can't be restored to different hardware.

4. The OEM license key can't be used to install a retail Windows install on a different computer.

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#76

Post by mgummelt »

owenversteeg wrote: post #34

This has been one of my favorite software projects to watch, because it's such an insanely monumental undertaking and moves so damn slowly. 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. Hell, I have never seen a ReactOS installation in the wild, and I'm the kind of perso…

Why would one use ReactOS over Wine? I read this page: https://www.reactos.org/wiki/WINE, but it didn't really provide an answer.

I understand that ReactOS doesn't require Linux as a dependency, but is that a significant win?

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#77

Post by dragontamer »

mgummelt wrote: post #76
owenversteeg wrote: post #34

This has been one of my favorite software projects to watch, because it's such an insanely monumental undertaking and moves so damn slowly. 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. Hell, I have never seen a ReactOS installation in the wild, and I'm the kind of perso…

Why would one use ReactOS over Wine? I read this page: https://www.reactos.org/wiki/WINE , but it didn't really provide an answer. I understand that ReactOS doesn't require Linux as a dependency, but is that a significant win?

Wine and ReactOS are practically sister-projects at this point that share a ton of code.

ReactOS does replicate the NT Kernel, so in theory (if it ever gets there), ReactOS would be able to run Windows Drivers. IE: the "real" NVidia and AMD Drivers or any other kernel-level drivers that exist in Windows land.

These days, AMD (and even NVidia) have decent Linux drivers. And WiFi drivers have Windows->Linux translators as well. But full compatibility to any Windows binary (including device drivers) is certainly a noble goal. There are a lot of little hardware devices that are written for Windows only (ie: specialized medical equipment, CAM / CNC Mill programs, etc. etc.) ReactOS would allow a smooth transition to Open Source if they achieve their goals.

------------ EDIT: It should be noted that there are a ton of Windows OS-level details that Microsoft does much better than Linux too. IE: I'd argue that Microsoft's security model (SIDs + ACLs) is superior to Unix-style Users + Groups. A large group of open-source developers who strongly understand the low-level internals of Windows is certainly a good thing in any case.

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#78

Post by bitL »

xenophonf wrote: post #75
bitL wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's the case. Unfortunately, ASUS didn't provide installation media, just recovery media, which only works for their 4GB/12GB SSD combo and was failing operation when I tried it on a new SSD. So I tried regular XP Home ISO, but was out of luck.

I'm not a Windows licensing expert, but this is basically how it works: 1. You can't use the OEM license with retail installation media. 2. You don't get OEM installation media because the license is tied to the hardware. 3. The OEM recovery media can't be restored to different hardware. 4. The OEM license key can't be used to install a retail Windows install on a different computer.

Simply wonderful! ReactOS is really needed...

Re: ReactOS releases 0.4.8 with experimental Vista/7/10 software compatibility

#80

Post by gambiting »

richard_todd wrote: post #74

One day when Windows drifts too far away from its golden age functionality, it will be great if ReactOS can fill the gap. However, I feel like MS could one-up them overnight by providing a sandboxed 32-bit XP VM as part of current windows. We’d get back DOS support and compatibility with old programs would be better. Call it Windows Subsystem for Windows or whatever. That would also pave the way to removing a lot of…

It was already a thing in Windows Vista - at least in Enterprise, you could download a "windows xp " compatibility package, right click on any application and start it in windows XP - it would silently start XP in the background and render the app the same way as a native Vista app, while running on the XP kernel in the background. I have no idea if it exists in newer versions of Windows however.
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