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Until such time that ReactOS hits 0.3% or so, I don't see a need for a separate Neowin subforum for it.

Until then, there is the official ReactOS forum, or just post in Neowin's General Software I would imagine. (I predict for technical questions, the ReactOS forum would be best)

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I'm downloading it right now, I'm just going to try it out.

Don't expect too much, it's not much more than a toy at the moment. All the builds that I have tried are unstable and border on unusable. This project is a nice pipe dream, but too many of their critical coders have parted ways, and it takes some time for the replacements to pick up the slack. Windows is a moving target, and this project will always be undermanned and underfunded, I don't expect it to ever be a viable Windows clone.

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Don't expect too much, it's not much more than a toy at the moment. All the builds that I have tried are unstable and border on unusable. This project is a nice pipe dream, but too many of their critical coders have parted ways, and it takes some time for the replacements to pick up the slack. Windows is a moving target, and this project will always be undermanned and underfunded, I don't expect it to ever be a viable Windows clone.

The moving goalposts analogy is spot-on.

Originally, it was a Win95 clone, and so forth. Now, in order to remain relevant, they need to duplicate XP (and soon, Vista).

It is a great project, and interesting to keep an eye on the work they are doing (and they have done some amazing things). But, in most respects, you would be better running Linux and using wine to run your Windows apps. (the reactos and wine groups work closely together, I hear)

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Originally, it was a Win95 clone, and so forth. Now, in order to remain relevant, they need to duplicate XP (and soon, Vista).

I do think one of the ways they could make the project a bit more relevant would be to branch the development tree to target specific versions of Windows functionality. Take for instance, Windows 2000 is approaching the end of it's life cycle, if they were to push for a stable release compatible to Windows 2000 standards and then provide security updates on an on going basis it 'could' be an alternative for organizations with legacy hardware and software applications to exist in a maintained environment. With that said, reactos would have a lot to prove to earn the trust of IT managers to make it a viable switch, and the reactos team would have to adopt such a development model.

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^^^ Except it would have to be more than just 100% Windows 2000 compatible. They already *have* that! It's called Windows 2000.

Why replace an aging Win2000 install with a clone ReactOS2000? The ReactOS has to do something to differentiate itself. Updates to keep fixing "bugs"? But what about some software that relies in the same idiosyncrasies to operate properly? New features? Perhaps "XP"-like features? Or Vista-like enhanced security (after all ReactOS would be, by necessity, vulnerable to the same malware that affects Microsoft versions)?

Providing exact Win2000 types of releases may sound good, but I don't see that serving much of a purpose.

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In terms of the original request, we generally wait until the need is obvious. If SD&A has so much activity from so many ReactOS threads that people are having trouble finding other stuff then we'll split it off.

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Providing exact Win2000 types of releases may sound good, but I don't see that serving much of a purpose.

My thinking is probably in opposite terms to yours in that some aspects of 2000/XP/2003 were deprecated with the release of Vista. If you snapshot a specific point of capability that ReactOS is either Vista capable or <=2003 capable then the supported software library is more clearly defined. These deprecated modes (ie. DirectDraw Retained Mode, and others?) probably only affect a limited number of applications, but it does factor in when Microsoft decides to deprecate a previous operation with a newer operation, and in some cases, removes support for the deprecated operation altogether. ReactOS may be capable of maintaining both functions simultaneously and not deprecating the predecessor, then they would definitely have set themselves apart from Windows.

Do we need another Windows 2000? You're right, we don't. I'm thinking in terms of baselining a system to meet a specific set of functionality rather than build releases fluctuating between various levels of interoperability.

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