I tried this recently in livecd. It didn't twig my usb mouse, took an age to boot, but looks like windows-3.11 while claiming to be an XP clone. But most of it works.

Why did some folks bother? What makes it better?

Like any of the thousands of OS's out there it fills a spot for users and developers.

Live media is a way to "test".

If you want to make it better I'll assume they always need help.

It's still a work in progress, might be useful for some when it's finished.

Apart from its licence? That alone is enough for me (for applications that don't play nice with Wine).

Edit: "better" isn't needed, "just works OK" will do.

That is one thing Windows won't do. Besides not fitting on a cd.

You won't know from a live session. Start installing Windows drivers for certain hardware like printers or scanners or Windows only proprietary hardware Wireless USB devices. Stuff a Linux kernel won't cover. Then find out for your self.

I had a VM of ReactOS for a good while, but, frankly, I never found anything useful to do with it.

This was my experience. 90% of all Windows drivers I attempted to install failed, 90% of all Windows programs I attempted to install failed. It worked with almost none of my hardware, I had to hard-wire to get network because my wireless didn't work, etc.

Given how long it's been around, and how much progress it's made, about the time we develop warp drive it'll be able to play doom III. I gave up and no longer bother wasting the bandwidth downloading it to even try.

If I absolutely had to use Windows, I would characterize ReactOS as a "noble effort" and buy a Windows computer, then use it only when I must.

ReactOs is getting better, I've been using several releases for testing software for older Windows computers. I see a lot of potential, it is surprising how much software run on it(and how many times it locks up ) Now that said i am not fond of the Windows layout but if I have to use it, I'd rather use one that is open.

Another thought, Linux WAS to Unix, like ReactOS IS to Windows.

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I'll do that when I need (SPIT!)m$ windows sometime. Thank you all for your positive and negative comments. I gather YMMV.

First, ReactOS is still in ALPHA status, it is not even in BETA yet. Do not expect a finished OS product from an ALPHA build.

Second, it is already general and powerful enough to load all of the drivers and applications many people need. (See the ReactOS forums for evidence.) If you have an application that seems a problem, why not discuss it there? They may have a solution.

Third, it jsut came out with an update, and anything you had issues with may have been solved now.

I have not tried the new version, but the last I tried lacked remote drive support, WIFI support, and a large part of printing support. For what I was doing at the time that was fine. It did run the applications I needed, and some that current Windows versions will no longer run. I look forward to trying the new alpha release, but am most excited about seeing a true beta release with all basic features in place.

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Unfortunately, there are too few developers interested in this clone to be able to get it up to where it needs to be for a new user.

The same applies to the BeOS clone, just too few devs to be able to make it useful.

FreeDOS is another niche O/S, but it has its uses.

This is correct, however most people try it once and see some bugs and declare it useless, period.

The same goes for Haiku (beos clone) if you want to try it, get the nightly builds it includes a lot more features than the first release. I have actually run Haiku quite a while i kind of like it. It is imo more stable and advanced than ReactOS. These won't replace your current OS but they are very interesting and fun to mess with.

Ok, but I'm afraid I wasn't too serious about it. If not wine, then one of my windows VMs will run it, although I leave them rationed with ram and cpu (Like everything else is). Not doing the mouse is pretty basic. As for windows 10, I told it my name was 'Tight Ass.' :-P. It might confuse the datalogging, or those reading the logs.

True, but if Wine doesn't help you still need a windows licence for the VM