ReactOS 0.4.1 Released – Activation Context, USB, UniATA, BTRFS | Hacker News Reader

ReactOS 0.4.1 Released – Activation Context, USB, UniATA, BTRFS

reactos.org

80 pointsjeditobe25 comments

Activation Context - A fix that came in just a tad too late for 0.4.0, this resolved a problem in the loader that prevented applications depending on various versions of the MSVCRT library from working properly.

BTRFS support - Initial read and write support introduced via importing of the WinBtrfs driver.

Shell - General usability improvements such as properly rendering icons and improved folder views.

USB - A variety of fixes that should make plugging in USB devices slightly less crashy.

Virtual machine shared folders - ReactOS now properly supports the shared folders of virtual machines like VirtualBox and VMware Player via network places.

I have a soft spot for ReactOS. It's an incredible technical achievement, especially considering the available resources. I hope the project stays around for a long time to come.

Great to see this project gaining some momentum. It seems like only yesterday I was reading about the 0.4.0 release on here. Keep up the good work!

Do people actually use this?

actually I use it inside a VM to test various Software that did run well under Windows XP but not under Windows 7. Actually the Windows 7 Emulation makes most Software to run, but not all. Also Windows 10 Emulation doesn't make everything runnable which runs under Windows 7 in Emulation, but ReactOS did run everything (just) fine (yet).

I wonder the same thing.

I wonder if they would have greater adoption if we could take this software and roll back the clock to 1999. Linux was pushing hard for the desktop and easy-to-install distros like Mandrake were on the scene. A well developed ReactOS would have been really useful in a practical sense. (I hate using the word practical because I feel it cuts these developers down which is not what I want to convey -- they guys have done amazing work.)

I will be honest and say that I think of ReactOS in a fashion similar to TempleOS: its a code to learn from. Given that view, I think both OS's serve a role. If I were in undergrad now and wanted to really understand OSs or windows internals (or perhaps how to secure them), I would start with either of these. You could jump into linux but upon a recent look of it, it seems very hard to jump into. But, I could be very wrong (as linux matures, it actually gets easier and easier to jump into as the abstractions are cleaner and so is the code).

Either way, bravo to the ReactOS team on their diligence and accomplishments. If anyone from the team is reading this, I would love to see some youtube videos about how you guys implemented certain features or how specific subsystems work (-- my shameless pedagogical desire)

I used it one time in a VM just for lels and keks.

It's basically just a tech demo right now. No way you could daily drive this in it's current state.

I'm going to try it out as a replacement for my Windows virtual desktops. I don't usually need to run Windows software in a Windows environment, but for the times that I do, I'd like something that doesn't try to upgrade to Windows 10.

Bleh never mind. Networking doesn't work in a VM :/

Are you sure? ReactOS has working networking under VirtualBox, at least. Check which network card is being virtualised.

Tried it with all the different network adaptors Virtualbox provides. It basically comes up with a driver installation request, then fails, saying "The device could not be installed because the driver could not be found". Same goes for audio, and pretty much any driver.

This is on the latest Virtualbox (which I just downloaded) and the latest ReactOS (which I just downloaded).

ReactOS does not like the latest VirtualBox. For me it works well under VirtualBox 4.1

For me it also works good on Vbox 5.0.10

I use ReactOS when I'm curious about how certain windows functions work internally.

Instead of reverse engineering the windows code, you can simply rely on the amazing work by ReactOS which is much more readable and understandable.

Looks amazing. Wouldn't "Oracle vs Google" if Oracle gets his way kill this project?

Potentially yes. Wine too.

https://www.winehq.org

If Microsoft chose to take them down, hopefully they wont. These projects are needed for historical reasons, WineHQ could end up being the only way in the future of emulating software Microsoft Windows may one day not even run.

The ChangeLog: https://reactos.org/wiki/ChangeLog-0.4.1

I'm wondering, is it possible to play games (from Steam / GOG et al) on ReactOS?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGwKKV1l4Vk

Video shows a 12 year old game running very poorly.

So, in summary: No

Not 12 years old. Game engine was updated several times.

But it's running inside a VM, so if you install it natively, it should be a lot smoother.

The things is, can it run natively on a decent array of hardware? Unless it can reliably use Windows drivers I expect the hardware support to not be that great. After all, Linux & FreeBSD, which are much older and a lot more popular, still have problems sometime with hardware support.

You'll notice (from reading the youtube description) it's using the VirtualBox Direct3D driver (which was written with windows as a target, not reactos). Support for windows driver is one of the goals of the OS IIRC.

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