Technology Open source Windows ReactOS finally has an update, and it's not that good

Gandalf_The_Grey

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There have been quite a few potential Windows alternatives that have popped up from time to time over the years. In our Look Back column, we had revisited some of these. For example, we published some stories on Corel Linux, BeOS, and Lindows. Another one of these projects is ReactOS often popularly referred to as "open source Windows". The project has been around for a very long time and set off to achieve a Windows XP-like OS experience albeit in an open source manner.

Over the last few years, it has been making some slow but steady progress with the rollout of improvements and updates. For example, in late 2023, the ReactOS development team implemented UEFI booting on a variety of devices like Nokia's Lumia, Apple's iPhone, and Valve's Steam Deck, and interestingly, the requirements were lower than that of Windows 11.

Following that, a few months later in February, ReactOS received a GUI or graphical user interface-based setup called "USETUP" for the simple reason of being more intuitive and being easier to navigate.

However, since then there have not been too many updates from the team until today. On its official X handle, the ReactOS development team has finally shared a progress report on its effort and it is not quite the positive one would have hoped for. As to turns out, audio is problematic due to "bugs elsewhere."
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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ReactOS 0.4.15 released
We are pleased to announce the release of ReactOS 0.4.15! This release offers Plug and Play fixes, audio fixes, memory management fixes, registry healing, improvements to accessories and system tools including Notepad, Paint, RAPPS, the Input Method Editor, and shell improvements.

We chose to release this version of ReactOS in honor of Eric Kohl’s first commit to the ReactOS code base, which dates back to 1999. Eric Kohl is the oldest active contributor of the project, and this is his 26th ReactOS anniversary! He has participated in the project as a developer since its beginnings.

This release is a culmination of the work of numerous contributors since 0.4.14 was branched in 2020. This has been the largest release to date. There are nearly 8 times more commits going into this release than in 0.4.14. We are proud of the progress we have made, and are eager to continue with this growth. Let’s dive in and see what’s new.
 

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