ReactOS

spook

Member
Hi I'm new here.. systems engineer & dabbler in php & high level Windows app programming from the UK, dabbler being the operative word. This looks like a friendly forum & I've read a few of the owner's contributions over at Pronet in the past so though I'd introduce myself here

I've been looking at ReactOS lately, what do people think of it? Will it have staying power or will it be crushed by the Microsoft behemoth? Wondering if anyone here has extensive experience with it.

As a hobby / sideline I occasionally build / sell computers, generally to non-computer literate people who pretty much always say they just want to word process, email and browse. Would ReactOS with a browser like say Firefox, an email client like Thunderbird, and maybe Open Office be a safe bet for installs like this, or do these things need more development before they're 'safe' for the non-computer literate to use 'unaided'?

I've been installing XP, Office etc till now, complete with attendant costs.
 
Hello Spook and Welcome to NeoSmart Technologies!

Where you there at PRO before they turned nasty? (i.e. would I know you from before? :tongueout:)

No matter, chances are, if you've been reading about ReactOS, it's because of our now-famous review :grinning:
http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/220

ReactOS has been there forever, but after our review made SlashDot, Digg, OSnews, and more it's now a very hot topic.

My personal experince with ReactOS is that now it's not ready for anything. If you haven't already read our review, just take a look at page 5: http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/220/5/

In a couple more years, ReactOS will be the operating system you described. You can use it as a full Windows 98/ME replacement, but as of now, it's just not ready.

ReactOS will run these programs now, but they will crash often and corrupt your data, not something you want to see..

In the end, I recommend simply downloading it and seeing for yourself, it's only 30MB after all. I do know people that have fallen in love with it despite its instability (well, it takes all of 4 seconds for it to reboot after a BSOD - not at all like Windows), and you'll never know until you see for yourself.

Good luck!
 
Somehow I missed your review, although yes I recall reading about the project on your pages initially. Thanks for the pointer to the review itself, excellent reading, thanks. Look forward to future developments with that project!

One of Pronets lurkers so I doubt you would have known me there really, but you had some interesting threads there.
 
lol, that's too bad - then again, maybe not.. it all depends on how you look at it I guess.

I'm glad you liked the review, that was a lot of effort by the NST team, but very well worth it, no one seems to have known what ReactOS actually was..

It's a shame about what happened on PRO, then they had to go ahead and change my name, add word filters that stop my name from being used, and lock any and all threads I participated in (9,604 at last count I think!!).... their loss.

But whatever, that's the past, welcome to NST, and I hope we can help :wink:
 
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