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

reactos.org

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

#271

Post by emilsedgh »

anthk wrote: post #235
mrighele wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an heavy keyboard user, and prefer it to the mouse. I find that Windows 2000 has the best support for keyboard users among GUIs. Better that MacOS, better than all the incarnations of Gnome/KDE, better that the following releases of Windows, that "forgot" about the keyboard and focused on other input systems. You can see that in many small things, like sane keybindings and reasonable sequence for selection throu…

KDE3 > Windows 2000. It was truly amazing. Ripping CD's by copying folder. FULL network integration on the file manager. KIOslaves. Artsd sucked, ok.

Things that you mentioned are still fully functional btw.

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

#272

Post by newsbinator »

xenophonf wrote: post #259
newsbinator wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a strange situation when a Windows licensing expert is actually a thing.

Commercial software licensing has always been a PITA, especially at the enterprise level. I just thank sweet baby Jesus every day I don't have to deal with IBM or Oracle.

There must be a chart somewhere that shows customer lifetime value vs. churn vs. licensing complexity.

At some low number of customers, the more complex you make your licensing, the fewer people buy and the fewer people renew, and since piracy is roughly zero anyway, you make your licensing simple.

Then something magical happens somewhere in the middle, where either piracy becomes scarier or your customers are more locked into your ecosystem. Then the more complex you make your licensing, for some reason the more profit you can get out of your customers. It must be this way, otherwise we'd have no way to account for MS/Oracle/IBM.

I wonder where the crossover points on the chart are.

* How much piracy do you take before you make your licensing a nightmare?

* How "enterprise" do you have to go before you stop worrying that making your software a massive pain to install and upgrade won't bleed your customers away?

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

#273

Post by arghwhat »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #107
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…

> soon (well, years, but still) people will be using it everywhere as a replacement for Windows. No they won't. It's a fringe OS that requires technical expertise to install. Not only that but it looks like "old Windows". Users won't want to work with a Windows from a decade ago. Not only that but it'll have bugs and no support. You'll see tiny pockets of people using it but as Microsoft gets closer and closer to sim…

> It's a fringe OS that requires technical expertise to install.

That's fixable (and not different from Windows).

> Not only that but it looks like "old Windows"

That is by far the easiest fix of all. People just care more about making things work right now.

Plus, a lot of people actually preferred the older style.

> Not only that but it'll have bugs

Welcome to software. Windows is also full of bugs.

> You'll see tiny pockets of people using it but as Microsoft gets closer and closer to simply having a free OS it doesn't seem likely anyone would ever use this OS for anything beyond "hey, that's cool!".

I think it might end up being quite big quite soon: There's a bunch of proprietary software out there that is old, and not Windows 10 compatible.

Things like car diagnostics software. If ReactOS gives them a way to get things working without Win10, I'm sure they'd eat it right up.

ReactOS just isn't ready for that yet. It's still major version 0.

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

#274

Post by _o_ »

BruiseLee wrote: post #252
_o_ wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont care about the "model". I only care about code quality and stability on critical tasks. And currently the distributions are becoming more and more chaotic, I think this will bite back, you can try and use some whatever the name paradigms but at the end development is hard and not made only from fun problems to solve, there are lots of annoying and pesky tasks that need to be done. And here the system where eve…

The world does not revolve around you. Regardless of your personal preferences, the Linux development model was an important part of its success.

With apologism you are only hurting Linux. With criticism you would be helping it, but looks like that the football match mentality is winning at the end. Have a nice PR session, i am quitting, have it your way. You won. How cool, right? Right? ;)

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

#275

Post by ksk »

I'm willing to bet, this will be very useful in a few years time, and the primary use will be 'fixed function' devices (in industries that are very slow to change) that currently require Windows. (ATMs, POS, Announcement Screens, Equipment controllers, SCADA systems, etc, etc)

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

#276

Post by _o_ »

anthk wrote: post #244
_o_ wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont care about the "model". I only care about code quality and stability on critical tasks. And currently the distributions are becoming more and more chaotic, I think this will bite back, you can try and use some whatever the name paradigms but at the end development is hard and not made only from fun problems to solve, there are lots of annoying and pesky tasks that need to be done. And here the system where eve…

https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257

Thank you for this link, really a nice reading.

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

#277

Post by nickpsecurity »

DEFCON28 wrote: post #129
da_chicken wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 95 still borrowed a lot of code from MS-DOS, though. That's why you could still exit to the command prompt. I think you could do that through WinME.

Huh? Why would you even say this? There's no MS-DOS code in Windows 95, and you couldn't exit Windows 95 to a command prompt. Are you just trying to throw some FUD into this conversation?

That would've made one of my favorite tricks impossible. Here's what I remember doing about those pesky login screens asking for passwords:

1. Reboot the computer in DOS mode.

2. Change to Windows directory.

3. Delete the .pwl file for a user.

4. Reboot back into Windows 95.

5. Enter a new password in what was once a login screen asking for the old one.

Simpler times for hackers back then. :)

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

#278

Post by Kadin »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #107
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…

> soon (well, years, but still) people will be using it everywhere as a replacement for Windows. No they won't. It's a fringe OS that requires technical expertise to install. Not only that but it looks like "old Windows". Users won't want to work with a Windows from a decade ago. Not only that but it'll have bugs and no support. You'll see tiny pockets of people using it but as Microsoft gets closer and closer to sim…

> Not only that but it looks like "old Windows".

Not convinced that's a weakness as opposed to a strength. Every time Microsoft changes literally anything about their UI, they alienate a legion of people who suddenly feel their workflow and productivity has been irretrievably broken.

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

#279

Post by AstralStorm »

gregmac wrote: post #140
DEFCON28 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 is good (really!) if you haven't taken a look at in a while. I switched from Mac on the Desktop to Windows 10 because I needed "pro" hardware (NVIDIA GPU, 1 TB RAM, etc) and it works just fine. They've really been on the ball in the last couple of years.

..once you fix a few things [1]: > This Windows 10 Setup Script turns off a bunch of unnecessary Windows 10 telemetery, bloatware, & privacy things. Not guaranteed to catch everything. Review and tweak before running. Reboot after running. Scripts for reversing are included and commented. [1] https://gist.github.com/alirobe/7f3b34ad89a159e6daa1

Very guaranteed to not turn off Cortana in fact. Goodbye 300 MB of RAM.

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

#280

Post by nickpsecurity »

revanx_ wrote: post #218
make3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when it starts getting really good, Microsoft will probably sue it to the ground.

How's that? It's open source and they wrote the whole thing from scratch. Even if they abandon the project it's open source and work can continue even after MS has their way with them.

They'll try to claim to have patents on key functions, API copyright like Oracle, or look and feel with either type of law. IBM destroyed a company that used Hercules emulator to replace its mainframes with compatibility or competition arguments attempted with failure. Oracle vs Google on API issue shows what can happen when big money gets thrown at lawyers. For patents, Microsoft collecting over a billion dollars on royalties from Android vendors and Apple blocking Samsung in Germany over look-and-feel are examples.

Anything trying to be compatible with a large, greedy company's software is a huge risk if it starts cutting into their profits. Maybe nothing will happen but something might happen. I'm more concerned for companies like EnterpriseDB than FOSS projects like ReactOS, though. The lawyers do prioritize on those making money with the competing software.

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