The development team for ReactOS, the open source operating system that is compatible with Windows programs and drivers, announced the release of ReactOS 0.4.9.
ReactOS 0.4.9 arrived more than a week ago, but no news of the version was discussed until today, when the development team released a full review with the details, screenshots and even a video of this new version.
The most interesting feature of ReactOS 0.4.9 is the self-hosting capacity, which allows users to use a version of ReactOS on top of a ReactOS installation. Before, ReactOS was already capable of self-hosting, but the feature had many problems and was removed in the newer kernel.
In addition to the self-hosting capabilities, ReactOS 0.4.9 brings many improvements to Shell and memory management, making the system more reliable and stable. One of these improvements is the ability to install large applications in low memory conditions.
For example, you will be able to play various games that are not on Linux natively, among which we have Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Worms Reloaded, StarCraft I and Windows Pong. You can even run Mac OS X 10.4 inside ReactOS using PearPC emulator.
Regarding the Shell improvements, ReactOS 0.4.9 adds the Zip Shell extension that allows users to extract .zip files without the need for an external file manager. Furthermore, it is now possible to copy files and folders by dragging them with the right mouse button, create files with different extensions and associate them with programs, and delay the shutdown command.
Lastly, ReactOS 0.4.9 is capable of presenting itself as Windows 8.1 in the different APIs. On the other hand, work continues to implement support to boot from USB devices, which will arrive in future ReactOS releases.
You can download ReactOS 0.4.9 from your Official Site, there are no serious errors so you can use it as your daily distribution.
And what operating system is it based on?
I will tell you it is of Russian origin, it is based on Windows NT, it is free and open source, so I read the system was rewritten from scratch, but it is not a Linux-based system nor does it share any of the UNIX architecture; because it comes out in everything related to Linux, I don't know.
As far as was known, it was a kind of linux that makes use of the wine project to be binary-compatible with the microsoft system