Beyond the usual updates to external dependencies such as Wine and UniATA, much work has gone into refining the experience of using ReactOS, especially with respect to the graphical shell and the file explorer. Perhaps the most user visible change however is the ability now to read from and write to several Unix file systems, namely ext family, ReiserFS, and UFS. Native built-in support for these file systems should make for considerably easier interoperability than the current out-of-box experience provided by Windows, and there is more to come in the future.

Recent Related News and Releases

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.13 ReactOS is an open source operating system which strives to offer binary compatibility with Microsoft Windows. The project's developers have published a new release, ReactOS 0.4.13, which offers a number of improvements to the graphical shell and USB support while the Xbox port of ReactOS has been updated. " The ReactOS Team is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.13. As with prior releases, keywords are noted representing the release itself and highlighting key improvements. In this particular case, the 0.4.13 version shows the results of significant hard work to bring improvements to the USB stack, further development on the Xbox port boot process, an Explorer File Search for the Shell module, as well as many other changes. USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an important standard adopted throughout the industry and used widely on many devices such as external storage, keyboards, mice, and various other devices. Notably, there are a great number of computers that do not come with a CD-ROM drive these days, with the only option being USB in order to boot or install an operating system. " Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement. Download (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.13-iso.zip (127MB), ReactOS-0.4.13-live.zip (95MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.12 Colin Finck has announced the release of ReactOS 0.4.12, a new version of the project's open-source, built-from-scratch operating system intended to be binary-compatible with computer programs and device drivers made for Microsoft Windows. The new version delivers various usability improvements, including window snapping and better font rendering, as well as support for the Intel e1000 NIC driver: " The ReactOS team is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.12. As always, a multitude of improvements have been made to all parts of the OS, though userland components saw special emphasis this time around. Filesystem drivers require a great deal of support to function correctly, and there is arguably no truer test of ReactOS' FS infrastructure than being able to run Microsoft's own FS drivers. While the project is not quite there yet, driving towards this goal saw considerable improvements been made. Pierre Schweitzer and Thomas Faber paid particular attention to the common cache, a module with deep ties to the memory manager and which traditionally has been a very troublesome component. " Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Download the ReactOS 0.4.12 installation or live variant from SourceForge (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.12-iso.zip (117MB), ReactOS-0.4.12-live.zip (86.5MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.11 ReactOS is an open-source operating system which strives to be binary compatible with software developed for Microsoft Windows. The project's latest release, ReactOS 0.4.11, introduces several improvements in filesystem storage, application loading and adds the ability to upgrade an existing ReactOS installation. " While the community wish-list for quality of life improvements in ReactOS is quite lengthy, one especially longstanding one has been the ability to upgrade an existing installation of ReactOS. Achieving this has required substantial effort in the USETUP module, effort that Hermès Bélusca-Maïto put considerable time into. The importance of this is twofold. The obvious enhancement is the ability to perform the upgrade, but the more substantive point is what this functionality entails for the future. For ReactOS to be usable as an actual system OS, it needs the ability to update in-place without losing user data and configuration. While requiring the user to go through the system installation process is still far from the user friendliness of other modern operating systems, it is still a substantial step forward and lays the foundation for ReactOS's maturation into an everyday driver of people's computers. " Further information can be found in the project's release announcement. The operating system is available in installation and live editions. Download (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.11-iso.zip (110MB), ReactOS-0.4.11-live.zip (75.7MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.10 Colin Finck has announced the release of ReactOS 0.4.10, the latest version of the project's open-source operating system which is developed with the goal of running Windows applications and drivers in an open-source environment. The new release allows booting from a Btrfs file system and there are also various front-end and stability improvements: " The ReactOS project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.10, the latest of our quarterly cadence of releases. The project has seen an increasing emphasis on consistency and stability over the past few months, an emphasis the rapid release schedule helps re-enforce to provide a better end-user experience. Even as new pieces of functionality are added, all this would be for naught if a user could not access them reliably. The headline feature for 0.4.10 would have to be ReactOS’ ability to now boot from a Btrfs formatted drive. Parallel to this effort was more basic work needed to expose the option to use Btrfs in the ReactOS installer and boot loader. The combined effort proved fruitful indeed and users are invited to try out Btrfs support in 0.4.10. " Read the release announcement with screenshots for full details. As always, ReactOS is available in Live and Install builds; download links (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.10-live.zip (75.0MB), ReactOS-0.4.10-iso.zip (109MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.9 ReactOS is an open source operating system which strives to provide binary compatibility with Microsoft Windows as well as a visually similar user interface. The project has released a new version, ReactOS 0.4.9, which offers a number of small improvements that enhance stability, allow the operating system to self-host itself and Zip files can now be opened natively as Zip Folders. " Several quality of life improvements have come to the shell, the first of which is a built in zipfldr (Zip Folder) extension by Mark Jansen. While Windows has long possessed this capability, now ReactOS can also uncompress zipped files without needing to install third-party tools to accomplish it. ReactOS's implementation is indeed very zippy. And of course with such new extensions it would probably be useful to be able to manage them, something that Katayama Hirofumi MZ has been working on, along with plenty of other improvements to the shell. " Further details and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement. ReactOS is available in Live and Install builds. Download (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.9-live.zip (78MB), ReactOS-0.4.9-iso.zip (109MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.8 ReactOS is an open source operating system which strives to provide binary compatibility with Microsoft windows applications and drivers. The ReactOS project has released a new version, ReactOS 0.4.8, which brings many improvements to the desktop interface. " Taskbar settings and dialogs have been rewritten by Giannis so now the auto-hide, toggle lock and always on top options work. These settings were visible before but as you might have noticed they've never been working at all. Meanwhile, David fixed several bugs and glitches of the notification area. Thanks to him, Giannis and Hermès, now balloon notifications are properly supported, queued and shown while a range of tooltip problems have been solved. Talking about the notification tray, due to Ged’s work, icons of killed and finished process are now automatically removed, even when apps crash. This is something that Windows doesn't even provide with Win10, and many Windows users may have noticed. " Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement. ReactOS is available in two editions: a live disc and an installation disc. Download (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.8-iso.zip (103MB), ReactOS-0.4.8-live.zip (73MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.7 ReactOS is an open source operating system which strives to be binary compatible with Microsoft Windows and is capable of running many Windows applications. The project has released ReactOS 0.4.7 which introduces improvements to application skins, better disk usage reporting and a smoother experience when sending files to the Recycle Bin. " James Tabor has put in a great deal of effort into getting the ReactOS painting process as close to Windows as possible. Furthermore, Katayama Hirofumi MZ has fixed the anti-aliasing text when a button was grayed out (and which was impossible to read before this fix). Another major achievement brought to you by Giannis has been to solve the Clipboard and Recycle Bin bugs. Now, in 0.4.7, ReactOS won't crash due an invalid/empty clipboard as it did previously, copy/pasting multiple files and pasting folders in the background should work well and now follows the Windows specs more closely. In 0.4.7, ReactOS now correctly manages file deletions when dragging them to the Recycle Bin. " Further details and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement. ReactOS is available in two editions, one for installing the operating system and a LiveCD edition for testing. Download (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.7-iso.zip (101MB), ReactOS-0.4.7-live.zip (71MB).

OS Release: ReactOS 0.4.6 ReactOS is an open source operating system which strives to provide a binary-compatible alternative to Microsoft Windows. The ReactOS project has published a new version, 0.4.6, with a focus on improving hardware support: " 0.4.6 is a major step towards real hardware support. Several dual boot issues have been fixed and now partitions are managed in a safer way avoiding corruption of the partition list structures. ReactOS Loader can now load custom kernels and HALs. Printing Subsystem is still greenish in 0.4.6, however Colin Finck has implemented a huge number of new APIs and fixed some of the bugs reported and detected by the ReactOS automated tests. Regarding drivers, Pierre Schweitzer has added an NFS driver and started implementing RDBSS and RXCE, needed to enable SMB support in the future, Sylvain Petreolle has imported a Digital TV tuning device driver and the UDFS driver has been re-enabled in 0.4.6 after fixing several deadlocks and issues which was making it previously unusable. Critical bugs and leakages in CDFS, SCSI and HDAUDBUS have been also fixed. " Further details can be found in the project's release announcement. ReactOS is available in two editions, BootCD for fresh installs and Live for testing the operating system without installing. Download (MD5): ReactOS-0.4.6-iso.zip (105MB), ReactOS-0.4.6-live.zip (74MB).