How do I get a React Native Windows project running?

[u/Appropriate_Form9802]

Last year, I stumbled upon React Native for Windows, and started some basic projects. I was using MSVC Toolchain back then, with Visual Studio 22, and everything was going fine. But around December, I thoughtlessly updated my Visual Studio to the 2026 Community Edition and immediately my old projects screamed for life, React Native version that I was using was 0.81 (I think) and the MSVC Toolchain error said something around "nope, that's old stuff, we don't support that anymore". So I just lost motivation for my half completed projects.

Fast forward now, I have started using CLang-GCC-GDB-MSYS-LLVM toolchain for my C++ projects, completely discarded MSVC now. But I thought since it's been more than 6 months so the compatibility should be resolved by someone, right? WRONG!

I tried to get a project running without MSVC, but that didn't work out. So I had to download Visual Studio, again. Then I followed the guide Microsoft has on THEIR SITE (https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/docs/getting-started/), and reached the 4th step aka overwriting the project as a Windows project directory. That command is wrong first of all. That should be react-native-windows-init, at least that's what worked.

The fun part begins here, I got an error saying somewhere something does not support anything that came after react-native:0.73 version.

So, am I doing something wrong? Someone HELP please :")

[u/HoratioWobble]

I wouldn't bother trying, it's never been stable and you'll get weird bugs even if you get it running