After more than three years of development, the ReactOS 0.4.15 operating system has been released, aimed at ensuring compatibility with Microsoft programs and drivers. Windows, and also offering design in the style WindowsAn installation ISO image (117 MB) and a live build (in an 85 MB zip archive) are available for download. The project code is distributed under the GPLv2 and LGPLv2 licenses.
Since the last release, over 8600 changes have been made and 1319 issue reports have been closed. Key changes include:
- The default visual style has been changed to the "Mizu" style.
- Added support for placing large icons in the taskbar.
- Added support for archives in ZIP format, which can be worked with in the file manager as a virtual file system, and also unpacked using a separate wizard.
- An "Internet Browser" icon has been added to the desktop to launch the web browser.
- Fixed issues with incorrect display of icons in applications such as Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Visual Basic 6, and Hoyle Cards. Improved stability of the Shell32 library.
- The PnP (Plug and Play) manager in the kernel has been significantly redesigned, which has expanded ReactOS's capabilities for running third-party drivers created for Windows.
- Added the ability to boot ReactOS from USB devices on chipsets with EHCI, OHCI, and UHCI controllers. Fixed issues with USB driver getting stuck when the USB device was not ready, which prevented booting on some systems.
- Improved audio stack. From Windows The Driver Kit (WDK) has been ported to the AC'97 driver, enabling sound support when installed in VirtualBox and the ICH AC'97 sound controller is selected in the settings, or when booting on systems with older motherboards. Support for higher sampling rates, multichannel output, new audio file formats, and looping WAV file playback has been added.
- The "Section Objects" mechanism for sharing memory areas has been redesigned in the memory management system. This change resolved the issue of not being able to run executable files from external partitions, such as network storage and shared drives. virtual machines.
- Of Windows The Driver Kit (WDK) has been ported to the Microsoft-open-source FAT driver. The new FAT driver addresses stability and performance issues with the old driver and enables proper ejection of external devices.
- Mechanisms for restoring, resetting the state and caching the registry have been implemented, which have increased the survivability of the system in the event of an emergency termination or power outage. The restoration mechanism allows for automatic correction of damaged areas of the registry, the state reset mechanism (flush) ensures periodic saving of changes to disk, and caching significantly increases the speed of working with the registry.
- The kernel has an improved Se (Security Subsystem) subsystem, which implements a mechanism for managing access to system objects.
- The capabilities of basic applications and system utilities have been expanded. For example, the Paint graphic editor now has a tool for working with text, and the Notepad text editor has a print dialog. The IME (Input Method Editor) for managing input methods has been improved.
- Added initial support for booting on multi-processor systems with SMP mode enabled.
- Significantly improved performance in 64-bit mode.
- Added a new command line utility tasklist to display a list of active tasks.
- Updated code for third-party components: ACPICA 20210730, mpg123 1.26.2, mbedtls 2.16.11, libxml2 2.9.12.
- Added Windows Driver Framework and Kernel Mode Driver Framework from Microsoft.
- The d3dx9 and wininet implementations have been synchronized with Wine 6.0, msi with Wine Staging 7.3, and dbghelp with Wine Staging 5.16. DLLs from Wine Staging 5.7 have been ported to regapi, and from Wine Staging 4.18 to dbgeng. The Metafile format support code has been ported to gdi32 from Wine.
The master branch further develops support for UEFI, SMP and power management, and adds a graphical installer and NTFS driver.
Source: opennet.ru
