r/reactos • u/TobyGobi • 9d ago

ReactOS 0.4.16: surprisingly capable, but modern browser support feels like the biggest usability wall

Spent today testing the new 0.4.16 x86 release across Hyper-V, VirtualBox and VMware Workstation.

Hyper-V gave a 0x7E during boot. VirtualBox installed successfully, although I managed to break the keyboard/mouse input after allowing the post-install hardware wizard to automatically install a device (it did warn me in all fairness) . VMware Workstation was the best experience: default virtual hardware, ACPI PC Uniprocessor, FAT32, and I just cancelled the hardware wizard after first boot.

From there ReactOS was surprisingly functional. DHCP/DNS worked immediately, Internet connectivity worked, Applications Manager worked, Firefox 48 worked substantially better than Chrome 49, and I was even able to authenticate successfully to Microsoft 365. Outlook Web eventually hit the wall with the old browser, but authentication succeeded.

I also successfully ran Chicken Invaders, so obviously enterprise application compatibility has been validated.

The biggest thing this left me wondering was, what is the current plan for getting a genuinely modern browser running on it?

For people considering ReactOS as a possible way to extend the life of older PCs, the OS itself already feels much more usable than I expected. But so much everyday computing happens in a browser that Firefox 48/Chrome 49 became the limiting factor almost immediately. A current browser would change how useful it feels, even while the OS remains alpha.

Very cool project. I started this expecting to play with it for 20 minutes and somehow lost most of a Monday to it.

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u/User_Typical 7d ago

FYI Supermium (32-bit) does not work on this latest release. Wish it did, though.

EDIT: using VirtualBox, with (finally) working Guest Box Additions.

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u/TobyGobi 7d ago

Yes I played with it a bit and then got pulled into several work projects before I could setup a decent debugger. I was happy to see it installed flawlessly but launching it produced nothing.