https://reactos.org

LOL

https://reactos.org/download

Does EXE stuff work with this????

I can't find much info on this but I am very, VERY tempted if it does work with all windows drivers for sound cards and graphics and games.

It's an alpha.... and I'm using the term loosely in this case. An interesting concept, fun to play with, but not anything you'd want to use as a primary OS.

I really want to find an alt to windows that will work with all my shit. and I am like holy crap is this it??!!!?! but I will have to dummy test this o's and see what it can do on my F around pc I have in the closet.


But still, I am hoping that one day we can get that windows alt that will do all windows can to a degree but free!

Can confirm they do, Run it in a VM it's still a Pre-Alpha

one step closer to a clone os that looks like windows 98 lol I love the old look and I wish all the best to that team to being able to even VM everything with ease and run like how it does in current windows.

Thanks for posting this. I will be contacting the team and asking them a F load of questions lol. +1 homeslice

Here is the WIKI https://reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS_FAQ

Interesting! 6 years in dev but never heard of it until today. That would be a win-win (no pun) for users and a mega slap in MS's face (might teach them some much needed lessons) to have a working kernel-based OS fully compatible with win drivers and programs.

Thanks for the share, really worth keeping an eye on this.

They’re pretty safe from a legal perspective as long as they don’t sell it since it’s built on open source code and targets compatibility with an unsupported windows kernel. A lot of the stuff under the hood is built on same stuff in Linux distributions. Microsoft doesn’t have much claim to any of the tech being used in this. If they wanted to shut it down they’d have to buy out one of the open source dependencies.

Just read the FAQ (see post 7) and they, I think, have pretty much covered their backside so that MS would be hard pressed to stop them. Unless of course declared themselves owners of the kernel architecture (incidentally they use Built-in Linux Kernel in win10) and other stuff used in ReactOS, but here I'd say to MS good luck to and have a nice and really high jump, and a very hard fall. Splat! ;-)

From a gaming perspective it's looking like it's not going to help you. The tricky thing has always been DirectX support, and that does not seem to be covered (from a very short investigation, happy to be proved wrong here).

Not seeing what you get over linux here.

There’s not much you get over Linux for end users, but there are interesting implications for legacy application support for business if this maintains a certain support level after being completed. Something to bridge the gap between new hardware and legacy software could be valuable in some instances, if this ends up capable of doing that.

Great point. That's where MS has gamers by the... throat with DirectX, which no way in hell they'd ever make open source. So here indeed hitting a big wall when it comes to gaming... But someone in the forums has reported a full successful DirectX install and it would make sense since it's supposed to be able to run MS applications.

But aside from gaming, uses such as those pointed out by Firstpastthepost makes it having great potential.

I've read about this OS like a decade ago. Surprised they're still working on it. Not surprised it's still on alpha stage. About 5 years ago someone managed to run Half-Life 2 on it... Afterwards I just stopped following that OS. Is like the move forward a lot and nothing at all at the same time. This guys must be commended though, the dedication is admirable and the goal even more so.