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ReactOS 0.3.8


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ReactOS 0.3.8

File Size: 32.5 MB

License: Open Source

Operating Systems: Windows NT/2K/XP/2003

HomePage; http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

FAQ: http://www.reactos.org/en/about_userfaq.html

wiki: http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Screenshots and Videos: http://www.reactos.org/en/media.html

ReactOS® is an advanced free open source operating system providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface.

ReactOS is the most complete working model of a Windows® like operating system available. Consequently, working programmers will learn a great deal by studying ReactOS source code and even participating in ReactOS development.

ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature complete and is not recommended for everyday use.

Compatible "Change your OS, not your software!"

Actually, the ReactOS project reimplements a state-of-the-art and open NT alike operating system based on the NT architecture-design. It comes of course with a WIN32 subsystem, NT driver compatibility and a handful of useful applications and tools.

ReactOS combines the power and strengths of the NT kernel - which is well known for its extensibility, portability, reliability, robustness, performance and compatibility – with Win32 compatibility.

Secure

Despite statements to the contrary, NT is secure by design. It was the first mainstream operating system with a proper implementation of a very flexible security model based on access control lists.

Recent NT based operating system from Redmond, especially XP, got bad reputation for its weak default security-settings; mainly, to simplify the transition from Win9x for both users and legacy applications. This decision alone invalidated many of the security features in NT. ReactOS will incorporate proper default security settings.

ReactOS has been designed for high security; it doesn't share common security flaws with other operating system.

On a closer view, real computer viruses (which are normal applications) are not widespread anymore. Most bad software are scripts that target common network software like browsers and email applications and software that had inbuilt scripting support like various Office products.

Obviously, more widespread systems with a large user base are more likely to be attacked by bad software writers than minor systems like Macintosh and Linux.

Lightweight

In short, ReactOS is designed to be powerful and lightweight. You can think of the term "lightweight" in the good old fashion of Win95, a consistent user interface and small bundle of very common and useful tools. In contrast, ReactOS offers a lot more, an up-to-date experience as well as built from scratch on a rock solid NT core.

Open

ReactOS is free software, the source code of the whole system is available for free and it is licensed under the GNU GPL license. "'Free' as in 'free speech' and as in 'free beer'"

ReactOS does not phone home or track your usage, nor does it contain spy-software. As a matter of fact, other well known competitors are known for such practices.

Life with other operating systems tends to be a love-hate relationship, with most people falling strongly on one side or the other. The ReactOS project has a great community that is well appreciated.

Reliable"Open your windows to freedom"

In fact, ReactOS has been written from scratch since 1996, a rock solid NT re-implementation, and therefore a reliable and robust operating system for tasks ranging from embedded micro computer to personal computer, workstations to server cluster, mainframes and super computers.

ReactOS incorporates many design decisions from other operating system families like UNIX, VMS, OS/2 and of course NT and is meant as 'the' new platform that serves all.

Performance

ReactOS is lightweight and fast and will outperform other bloated operating system in several ways.

Portability"ReactOS – the XP successor people asked for"

The ReactOS operating system design is able to provide portability across families of processors, such as Intel x86 and even provide portability across different processor architectures, such as CISC and RISC.

There is only one single OS core, the kernel; porting ReactOS to other architectures involves 'only' the hardware abstraction layer, the lowest part that talks directly with the platform hardware.

Extensible

ReactOS is flexible and extensible by design. ReactOS is probably one of the most versatile operating system platform, especially thanks to its NT kernel and the open source nature.

ReactOS can be extended with the help of so called "subsystems" to provide support for legacy applications from other platforms. For example, a POSIX subsystem would provide compatibility layer with various flavors of UNIX applications.

Object Based

ReactOS is not an object-oriented system in the strictest sense of the term, but it does use objects to represent internal system resources. Software objects are a combination of computer instructions and data that model the behavior of things, real or imagined, in the world.

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