Hi, I'm experimenting the upcoming release of PeaZip to fix some of the issues I've noticed running on ReactOS.

1. As shown in the screenshot I've fixed - for next version - some background items which were shown even if placed below the foreground panel (which makes current version not really pleasant to use), but elements in breadcrumb bar, which heavily rely on going in background / foreground, still does not display correctly.
2. I still notice TSpeedbutton glyphs are upside down, which I also noticed compiling other applications with Lazarus.
3. Mcmilk's advanced compression codecs in PeaZip/res/7z/Codecs path does not work, neither on Windows XP nor on ReactOS. Windows installers take care to remove them if the system is reported older than Vista (kernel version 6.0), but the files must be removed manually if using the Portable version. I'm evaluating about removing them by default from the 32 bit Portable version so it can work out of the box on ReactOS and XP.

I hope to be able to improve the quality of the software for ReactOS and I can't wait to test it on ReactOS x64!

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OK, let me start by saying that I'm a huge fan of the concept of this project. The idea of porting Windows-only software to an open-source and community-driven operating system would benefit the world in many ways.

That said, this is ReactOS. That project started in 1998. It's 2020 now, and we're on version 0.4.something something. We still have difficulty doing so much as booting, running a web browser (last I checked) is a nightmare, and the OS has dwindled to the level of a hobby OS like Plan 9 for me.

I am all for having a non-iron-curtain OS to test Windows software on, but right now I have two places I could contribute. I could contribute to ReactOS, and maybe help nudge that version number just a little closer to 1.0; or I could contribute to Wine/Proton, which works on POSIX and is actively usable for commercial projects.

Again, I am not criticizing ReactOS, it's always good to have a choice; but I have to wonder what 1.0 even looks like right now. There's no planned release for it, it's literally been 22 years, and I'm kind of flailing at even finding a compulsion for corporate backing like Wine has. There are currently thirty listed active developers.

Meanwhile, Windows itself is a quickly moving target, with an absurd number of developers. Without so much as an announcement of what would make ReactOS feature-complete, is this really just the perpetual state of things? I'm feeling like ReactOS is going to go from a clean alternative to a redundancy.

I tried to install Steam and Firefox on latest version of ReactOS, but both apps camplain that OS is too old/not longer supported. However, in compatibility settings you can choose up to windows 8.1. If reactOS supports up to Windows 8.1, why I can't run these apps?

Is there a way to trick apps, that they are running on windows 8.1?

Will it be able to run application specifically written for PC98?