"Open-Source Windows" ReactOS To See Improved GUI Setup/Installation

ReactOS Deutschland e.V. has hired a longtime contributor to this "open-source Windows" project to spend the next five months working on the ReactOS GUI setup mode as an alternative to their classic text-based setup mode.

ReactOS is paying Hermès Bélusca-Maïto to work on the ReactOS GUI setup mode for the next five months to finish the first-stage code as an alternative to the text-mode setup code that has been used to date when setting up a ReactOS installation.

Some of the key milestones to be focused on include:

- Finish partial-Winesync of setupapi.dll regarding CAB-file extraction;
- Move the FreeLdr bootloader installation choice step after the ROS disk/partition-choice step and JUST before the actual installation;
- Integrate registry settings callbacks (currently absent in the GUI setup);
- Add GPT support for the GUI Setup;
- Miscellaneous stuff (further cleanup, some refactorings, etc).

More details on this ReactOS funded initiative via the ReactOS.org blog. It's great to see the GUI setup mode hopefully coming together over the next half-year for hopefully making installing ReactOS more user-friendly for those that may be intimidated by the text-based setup mode currently employed.