ReactOS, the Open-Source Windows, Just Got an Update

ReactOS 0.4.15 includes new storage drivers, which should help with overall stability and UDB drive compatibility, as well as new drivers for networking. There are also many updates to fonts support, the desktop shell, Windows APIs, themes, and file dialogs.

ReactOS is still primarily built to run software for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and software using APIs implemented in Vista or later usually don’t work. If you want to run modern Windows software without Windows, the Wine/Proton compatibility layer on Linux is still a much better option. ReactOS has plans to support Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 applications (Windows NT 6.x) in an eventual 0.5.0 release, but at the current pace of development, it could be years before that happens.

In the meantime, ReactOS is still an interesting project that can be used to run many older applications and games. It should also work on many Windows 98/XP-era computers, thanks to its low hardware requirements.

ReactOS 0.4.15 is also the first release to support the 64-bit x86 (amd64) CPU architecture, at least far enough to get to the desktop. However, there’s no 64-bit version available for download, presumably because ReactOS is still working on its own version of WOW64. Until that’s ready, 64-bit ReactOS can’t run 32-bit Windows software, which is currently most of the software compatible with ReactOS.

Download ReactOS

The disc images for ReactOS 0.4.15 are now available from the official SourceForce project—the “live” images will give you a live boot environment. You can insert them in a virtual machine, or if you want to try out ReactOS on native hardware, you can write the images to a USB drive with tools like Rufus or Balena Etcher. It’s just like using a bootable Linux disc image.

The system requirements for ReactOS include an x86-based processor (“Pentium or later compatibles”), at least 64MB of RAM, and a drive with at least 450 MB of free space with a FAT16/FAT32 boot partition. You’ll need 2GB of storage or more to install large applications and games. Hardware support in ReactOS is still limited, so you’re probably better off using it in a virtual machine.

Source: GitHub, ReactOS Wiki (1, 2), Phoronix

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