reactos as a cracking tool
category: offtopic [glöplog]
imo reactos could be used as a tool for cracking windows software. what are your thoughts on this?
DISCUSS!
But why ReactOS and not the canonical w1nd0wz?
Or ROS has some additional, special, completely black magic tools, whitch doesn't running on w1n at all?
Or ROS has some additional, special, completely black magic tools, whitch doesn't running on w1n at all?
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ReactOS® is a free, modern operating system based on the design of Windows® XP/2003. Written completely from scratch, it aims to follow the Windows-NT® architecture designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level. This is not a Linux based system, and shares none of the unix architecture.
The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows® would find using React
I fail to see the sense in this.
Since reactos is based on (legacy) NT4 code wouldn't the libs etc. be a fair bit different to vista/7 stuff? Surely using winpe with modules for windbg, wdasm or cmd based debugers/assemblers then saving to a file on a hdd be better for more 'modern' progs? Just a thought.
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I fail to see the sense in this.
Ditto.
ida for life! i can't see any advantage of using reactos as a cracking environment over using any kind of kernel-mode disassembler in a casual windows system. not to mention incompatibility problems ..
So, it's a clone of windows.. presumably allowing you to run your windows stuff without paying for a license. Except that it's going to be in violation of a ton of patents and copyrights, making it illegal. So, um, why not just either a) buy windows or b) pirate windows? ReactOS sounds little better than a half-broken pirate copy!
Or in other words, what dewn said.
Or in other words, what dewn said.
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Except that it's going to be in violation of a ton of patents and copyrights
Basically, reactos is to windows what linux is to unix: re-use by reverse engineering without actually a way to proove it's reverse engineering. (like for the first IBM PC also). So it's a case law, and ms doesn't care.
note: reactos also share some parts with linux's wine.
... and what I think of reactos: would have been cool if was 100% complete 2 or 3 years ago. Now is obsolete because of win7 (maybe). And anyway, everyone should be on ubuntu or osx by now
Yeah, seems to me the project would exist only as long as Microsoft don't care about it, i.e. precisely as long as it's useless. Even if Microsoft somehow can't sue them for patent infringement, they can still prevent components like DirectX and .NET from working with ReactOS, throwing any number of obstacles in the ReactOS developers' way.
On the other hand it's such an enormous project that it'll probably always be at this "don't actually use it yet" stage anyway. NT, which they're cloning, is around 10 MLOC, and with most users expecting functionality more along the lines of XP (30-50 MLOC), and eventually Windows 7 (50+ MLOC), the ReactOS guys really have their work cut out for them. I'd check back in 5 years.
On the other hand it's such an enormous project that it'll probably always be at this "don't actually use it yet" stage anyway. NT, which they're cloning, is around 10 MLOC, and with most users expecting functionality more along the lines of XP (30-50 MLOC), and eventually Windows 7 (50+ MLOC), the ReactOS guys really have their work cut out for them. I'd check back in 5 years.
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I'd check back in 5 years.
When XP support is working fairly well? :)
Actually, that's kind of made me change my mind about the project. Maybe it'll be a bit like dos box, good for watching old demos on new machines. If they can get reasonable hardware support, and if regular emulation doesn't work well enough.
perhaps in 5 years we can start cracking xp software then.. :-)
Well, it's more like FreeDOS than DOS Box. If NT doesn't support your hardware in 5 years, then ReactOS probably wouldn't, either, at least for a long time. You can still run Windows 95 on a modern PC, even DOS+Win 3.11 or OS/2 or whatever. The real problem is drivers, and the ReactOS team won't magically create support from hardware vendors once those vendors are no longer interested in Windows NT/2000/XP. So in a few years ReactOS will be more or less where Linux was ten years ago, except without the respect that Linux already had in the server market then.
Anyway, Microsoft is doing lots to make sure you can still run old software on newer Windowses, and then on top of that effort you have WINE and many different virtual machines. I just don't see what useful purpose ReactOS could serve. It's not like Windows NT/2000/XP is an especially closed platform.
Anyway, Microsoft is doing lots to make sure you can still run old software on newer Windowses, and then on top of that effort you have WINE and many different virtual machines. I just don't see what useful purpose ReactOS could serve. It's not like Windows NT/2000/XP is an especially closed platform.
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reactos is to windows what linux is to unix: re-use by reverse engineering without actually a way to prove it's reverse engineering
everyone should be on ubuntu or osx by now
WIN, but I'll caveat that with *any* linux distro.
dume: true. Well, maybe it'll find some kind of purpose one day. Or maybe it'll enter the history books as one more pointless OS that never made it to 1.0.
This is not marked residue becase... ?
"we all need a hobby."
I take it all back:
i'd say that their only chance of success is to support windows xp applications when the support stops from microsoft. i know quite a few shop owners who still run win95/xp due to their applications not working on newer windows versions.
But, it doesn't allow you to run old software in newer versions of Windows. And it can never be more XP compatible than Windows XP. So it doesn't give you any benefits over just running Windows XP. And after MS stops supporting XP in 2014, ReactOS still won't have better hardware support than XP, since it has the same driver base.
Also of course, ReactOS has been in development for 12 years now, and it still doesn't even have full NTFS support, which you'd think is a fairly minor part of reverse-engineering and cloning an entire desktop OS. So by 2014 it looks like XP will still be a more secure and reliable OS, even without the updates from MS, until something like at least 2020. At any rate WINE for Windows looks like a much more promising solution. It actually sort of works now.
So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm baffled. :P
Also of course, ReactOS has been in development for 12 years now, and it still doesn't even have full NTFS support, which you'd think is a fairly minor part of reverse-engineering and cloning an entire desktop OS. So by 2014 it looks like XP will still be a more secure and reliable OS, even without the updates from MS, until something like at least 2020. At any rate WINE for Windows looks like a much more promising solution. It actually sort of works now.
So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm baffled. :P
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Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.11 is still in alpha stage and is not recommended for everyday use.
12 years!
...
I'm filled with bewilderment!
...
I'm filled with bewilderment!
after reading this. i realize it was a bad idea. it seemed like a good idea at the time to me. i actually wasn't going to post on this at all after reading all the posts here which are valid reasons. so, i didn't want to bump the post. but this will do it anyway. i was thinking maybe the api could be modified to make some programs output their serial numbers to another program or a console on there.