"Open Source Windows" ReactOS just got better GUI install setup, no GPT yet

There have been quite a few potential Windows alternatives that have popped up from time to time over the years. In our Look Back column, we have been revisiting some of these. For example, earlier today, we published a story on Corel Linux, and then last month we wrote about BeOS, as well as Lindows.

Another one, which continues its development is ReactOS, which has often casually been referred to as the "Open source Windows," and it has again received a major update this past week.

If you recall, we covered the last big update back in November where the ReactOS development team announced that 64-bit UEFI bootability was available across a wider range of devices.

Alongside that, the team has been working to improve the GUI-mode setup, which is another way to go about installing ReactOS aside from the text-mode installer called "USETUP."

The idea behind this upgrade is simple, GUI is just much more convenient overall for the average user and when it comes to ReactOS, which has been described as the open-source Windows, the impetus for it to have a well-defined GUI (graphical user interface) is obvious.

In its blog post, ReactOS writes:

Although the installation workflow used by the text-mode USETUP might make sense, from a UI perspective (each action is done from a different screen; only forward progress is allowed, and once an action has been chosen, it cannot be undone), the GUI-mode setup changes some of these assumptions. The wizard-style of the GUI setup allows going back and forth between different pages.

Its partitioning page shows a minimal interface, similar to the text-mode one, but more reminiscent of other GUI partitioning software.

The image below combines screenshots of the improved ReactOS Setup wizard one page after another, starting from the Welcome screen and ending on the partitioning page:

As you can see, the GUI is fairly similar to the classic Windows setup, like that of Windows 95.

The "Advanced Options" on the fourth quadrant of the image lets users choose the target directory for ReactOS installation. Despite UEFI support, GPT (GUID partition table) does not work currently.