ReactOS 0.3.7 keeps open source Windows open

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I’ve been following the ReactOS project for several years, watching and waiting to see how this open source clone of Windows matures.

Originally it was an effort to be compatible with with Windows NT, later Windows 2003 became the goal. With the ReactOS 0.3.7 release ReactOS is still alpha software but it inches a bit closer towards its goals.

According to the ReactOS project the new release includes:

• Improved x64 architecture support
• The start of a real MSVC compiler support project
• Kernel improvements and bugfixes in quite a few parts: Configuration Manager, IO Manager, KE, Memory Manager, Object Manager, Process Manager
• Network stack improvements: leakage fixes, increased functionality
• Filesystem driver fixes, making them more compatible with the Microsoft NT cache manager
• Win32 subsystem improvements and synching of most of the Wine usermode DLLs

No it’s still not something that will replace Windows.

It is however an interesting project to watch and see how an open source effort can try and build something that will behave like Windows –  but isn’t Windows. (Sure there was a little issue a few years back about whether ReactOS had any infringing code – but the audit came back clean.)