ReactOS release 0.4.8 is now available for download

Apr 16, 2018 13:07 GMT  ·  By

Work on the free and open-source ReactOS computer operating that's binary-compatible with Windows software continues with a new release announced this past weekend.

Coming more than four months after version 0.4.7, ReactOS 0.4.8 is here with numerous improvements to the user experience and a bunch of new features that should please fans of the Microsoft Windows alternative. First, this release finally makes the "auto-hide," "always on top," and "toggle lock" options work as expected.

Support for balloon notifications in the system tray area has been added, along with automatic removal of icons of terminated process. The user experience optimizations continue with the ability to select multiple icons on the desktop, and it's now possible to view the capacity of local or attached drivers, as well as of folders and dirs.

ReactOS 0.4.8 is also adding support for unmounting network drives directly from the file explorer thanks to the implementation of new Disconnect and Eject menu entries. Furthermore, the font substitution settings are now being properly overwritten when changing the locale, and system time is now correctly set.

"From the visual point of view, several glitches related to the redrawing of static text elements, scrollbars, button captions, fonts and text background colors were fixed in this version. As a bonus, now ReactOS also detects more themes and is much faster when rendering big amounts of text," reads the release announcement.

Support for Windows 10, 8, and Vista software, initial NTFS support

And now for the goodies that the ReactOS 0.4.8 release is bringing to fans. We'll start with the NT6+ support, which lets users install and use apps made for Microsoft's Windows 10, 8, and Vista operating systems. While this implementation is in early stages of development, it still lets you run some Windows 10 apps on ReactOS.

Another cool new feature introduced in ReactOS 0.4.8 is an NTFS driver, which lets you read NTFS formatted drives. However, support for writing to NTFS drives is currently experimental, meaning that you can enable it by modifying the registry but keep in mind to use it with care as it might lead to data loss.

This release also includes a new app similar to the DrWatson32 software for Windows, which should help the ReactOS devs better understand why some apps crashed using the automatically created logs on the desktop. New drivers for supporting virtual floppy and CD-ROMs were added as well, along with a new CDFS driver.

Other than that, ReactOS now better supports some games when using native graphics drivers and fixes numerous, long-lasting bugs. Lastly, some components were updated to their latest versions, including Wine 3.0, Ext2 0.69, and FreeType 2.9. You can download ReactOS 0.4.8 right now from the official website.

Quicktime for Vista and 7 working in ReactOS
The new settings and autohide working
The new settings and autohide working
DrWatson-alike tool in action
DrWatson-alike tool in action

ReactOS 0.4.8 (5 Images)

ReactOS 0.4.8 released
Quicktime for Vista and 7 working in ReactOSThe new settings and autohide working
+2more