BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-05-16, 12:40:
Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-05-16, 11:57:
ReactOS aims to be 100% compatible with Windows, doesn't it? Is it planned to have any advantages over Windows (other than presumably ReactOS being free to the end user), such as running faster, or better compatibility options for backwards compatibility?
It hasn't reached either of them. It slowly is trying to reach there, but that's a long path ahead. The last time I tried, it wasn't able to run MIDI. Some popular office applications and media applications worked fine though. Probably they should look into the leaked Microsoft stuffs and create something inspired by it which may make their work significantly faster.
Originally ReactOS 0.3.x targeted NT 4.0 API level. However that goal changed since 0.4.x as they're targeting NT 5.2 (XP/2003) now.
ReactOS, like many other FOSS alt OSes (such as Haiku) is not going to be very useful for serious gaming or even audio works, as most vendors now only make drivers for Win10 (or maybe Win7 and macOS if the respective userbases are large enough). It might end up becoming a good choice for embedded/IOT use cases, though, as it feels considerably lighter than a full Windows install.
Should point out that Win8/8.1 (NT 6.2/6.3) is effectively dead despite it's not EOL yet (which is due to happen in 2023), as driver vendors (namely AMD) stopped making drivers for those thanks to the abysmal usage share. It may be possible to use Win7 drivers for some hardware in case of the absence of actual Win8/8.1 ones, but they may not work as intended.
IANAL but there's this concept called clean room design which ReactOS intends to respect, so the leaked source code (as well as those who have legal access to read the WRK source) would definitely not be allowed there.