ReactOS 0.3.9 Released

Our development team is pleased to announce the 9th increment of the  =

0.3 series of ReactOS, an open source Windows=AE compatible operating  =

system.

As we draw ever closer to the 0.4 series, more and more work is being  =

put into bugfixing existing code in an effort to get more  =

applications and drivers working. This release is testament to that  =

and is our most compatible release to date. However, the development  =

team have still been working on expanding the features alongside  =

bugfixing existing features, and quite a few additions have found  =

their way into this release. Two key areas which stand out are the  =

much improved network stack and the emergence of sound support in the  =

kernel via the new kernel streaming services.

Along with the rest of the 0.3 series, this release is still  =

considered alpha quality software so it may not run all your apps or  =

run on your hardware.

A detailed consolidation of all changes can be found in the changelog  =

(http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Changelog-0.3.9). A sum up of  =

some of the more important changes is as follows:

     * Reduced minimum memory requirement to 32Mb. In theory ReactOS  =

can now be installed with 24Mb and run with only 20Mb
     * A new, faster Hyperspace Mapping Interface has been  =

implemented in the kernel resulting in a speed improvement of over 300%
     * Security check improvements to the Object Manager in the  =

kernel improves performance by 500%. Noticeable during large file/ =

registry operations
     * Various NDIS and AFD problems have been solved which increase  =

compatibility with 3rd party NIC drivers and hardening of the network  =

stack
     * Preliminary support for sound via the new Kernel Streaming  =

service. It's now possible to use the ac97 driver via our new Port  =

Class library to play sound bytes using winamp
     * A great deal of work has been put into the command prompt to  =

make it much more compatible. It's now able to run very complex  =

scripts, including our own Build Environment
     * Many bugfixes to the kernel mode portion of the GDI resulting  =

in much improved drawing engine across all bit depths
     * Synchronization of most of the Wine usermode DLLs

Main news link: http://www.reactos.org/en/news_page_51.html
Download link: http://www.reactos.org/en/download.html

--
Aleksey Bragin
ReactOS Foundation President
http://www.reactos.org