ETA: I should have named this, would you use this OS? Oh well.
There’s a project that’s been going on for about 10 years now called ReactOS. It’s an attempt at a Windows XP/2003 clone. It’s still in the alpha stage at 3.11 and won’t even be beta until version 5.0.
Now in the time that the ReactOS project has been going on Windows Vista and now Windows 7 has come out, and when they’re finally done I wouldn’t be surprised if another version comes out. Also, it only seems to be 32 bit at this point, and it only uses FAT32, no NTFS.
So, if and when they finally have a working version, would you use it? For a while I thought it seemed like a cool idea, but I’m using Windows 7 now and I wouldn’t go backwards just to use it. But I could think of reasons some people might have for using it.
But what about you, would you use it if it finally gets finished?
This follows the path all these public projects do that want a free program like one that is for purchase. By they time they get it all together, almost nobody wants to use it it’s so outdated. It’s waste of time that could have made something new, but people that have innovative ideas are not copying software they are working on new ideas.
As I shall never buy anything from Microsoft ( although their hardware seems not bad ), I can see a use should one want to run oldish games: however I’d imagine it would be simpler to buy a second-hand copy of Win 2000 or XP and run it as a virtual guest. And the normal programs that were current back in the day of XP would be rather superseded by their improved successors anyway.
FAT32 has only one real virtue, that it can be seen ( read/write ) by most other OS’s; NTFS, let alone other file systems, is better.
On the other hand… it is clever, and one must admire such dedication.
What’s the point? There’s already a Windows replacement called “Linux” that’s updated everyday and contributed to by thousands of people and companies. FAT32 and NTFS support? Yep. Able to run Windows programs natively with more reliability than ReactOS ever will? Yep. Better driver support? Yep.
Sometimes it is important to know when to give up. Would I use it? No way. With the small number of testers, I’d expect to be finding bugs for years even if I had a reason to want to install their XP instead of an old copy of the real one.
I understand them - I often have the urge to create my own versions of commercially available software from scratch, just for the fun of it. But I lie down and the urge goes away.
Yeah. A few years ago it seemed intriguing, but seeing how they’re still stuck in the alpha stage then by the time they’re through Windows XP will be a distant memory. Unless of course once they finish maybe it will be easier and faster to upgrade it to be the clone of whatever the newest version of Windows is. Only then could they probably start to be taken seriously.
I could see maybe Linux users who need to run a Windows program, but can’t get it to run on WINE or other emulators. Or maybe people putting it in virtual machines to play with it for the hell of it.