Release ReactOS 0.PI (0.3.14)

The ReactOS team is proud to announce the release of ReactOS version 0.3.14.

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The ReactOS team thanks everyone who has ever participated in the development and testing or helped with something else and is dedicating this release to the memory of Greg van Geldorp .
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This version contains a huge amount of both architectural and user-friendly changes and improvements. Also, it includes the results of a great job done as part of Google Summer of Code 2011 , where team members presented the students with projects for development and acted as their mentors.

ReactOS network stack processing has become one of the most significant changes. One of the projects developed during GSoC is the new TCP / IP driver created using the LwIP project code. The LwIP library is a popular and stable implementation of the TCP / IP protocol, originally intended for use in embedded computer systems. With the introduction of the new driver, the stability and performance of the network stack has been significantly improved, which allows applications with a wide data transmission channel, such as torrent clients, to function normally. In addition, the addition of scatter / gather DMA support to ReactOS resulted in improved compatibility with NT5.1 drivers. Last but not least, ReactOS now supports wireless networks and is able to connect to open networks as well as networks using WEP encryption.

One of the changes that users will notice in the new version is support for themes . Users can now change the appearance of the ReactOS user interface, set the UI themes created for Windows XP, and change the appearance of the desktop from a standard theme to something much more exotic.

Adding a kernel-mode test environment helped reveal a number of errors in the kernel components. This is a fairly important change, leading to a more stable operation of the kernel and giving the project crucial information about the occurrence of unwanted regressions in the kernel of the system.

Support for building ReactOS using software tools from Microsoft has also played a big role in the preparation of this release. Now the project is at the stage when it became possible to fully assemble ReactOS in the MSVC environment and to get absolutely working images of the installation and livecd disks. All this, together with GCC, allows you to build ReactOS using two different toolkits on different platforms, both in Windows and in Linux and MacOS X.

In preparing this release, 789 errors were corrected, including 118 regressions. The oldest corrected regression was error number 1009 (it is not possible to open the context menu with the Shift-F10 key combination). The oldest bug fixed was error number 209 (the PrintScreen key does not work), an entry about which was created more than eight years ago. Since the release of version 0.3.13, 811 new error entries have been added.

List of the most significant changes in the new version.

• ACPI
  Support for advanced configuration and power management interface is now activated automatically when using ACPI HAL (hardware abstraction level), and provides the ability for the power buttons to function, as well as the system's total power off function.
• Lwip
  A new TCP / IP driver based on the LwIP library was added to the ReactOS codebase , which led to a significant increase in the stability and performance of the system’s network stack, and also opened up the possibility of implementing ipv6 support in the future.
• MSVC Compatibility
  ReactOS can now be assembled using a Microsoft compiler , while obtaining fully functional images of the installation and livecd disks.
• Scatter / Gather DMA Support
  The system now supports Scatter / Gather DMA operations, which significantly increases compatibility with network adapter drivers written for NT5.1 and later systems.
• Shell enhancements
  The merging of the program code created during the rewriting of the shell32 library into C ++ language with the main code branch of the project led to many architectural improvements that in the future will serve as the basis for work on the new Explorer shell.
• Special pool
  The so-called "special pool" was created to verify the correct use of the kernel memory pool.
• Support themes
  ReactOS now has the infrastructure necessary to use UI and shell themes, allowing users to install and use themes other than the classic Windows theme.
• WiFi
  A very notable achievement is that ReactOS now supports wireless networks and is able to connect to open networks, as well as networks using WEP encryption.

Author translation evilslon .

Crowdfunding experiment

Crowd funding experiment is coming to an end. If volunteers who wish to implement the functions ordered by the community are not found within the agreed time, then all funds raised (~ 10,000 rubles) will be transferred to the ReactOS Foundation.