We had no success at all trying to create a bootable USB flash drive to install ReactOS from. Whichever software you use to do this (and Windows 10 has the function built in), ensure that the disc is bootable. You also have to burn the Boot CD ISO file to a CD or DVD. However, the list of compatible hardware is pretty short and almost exclusively contains hardware with release dates of between 19.

Installing ReactOS on actual hardware isn't much more difficult, as long as your PC is compatible. Use the arrow keys to select the correct language, and then you can pretty much press Enter or click Next until ReactOS is installed. Use the file browser to select the ReactOS Boot CD file you downloaded.Ī journey back in time: ReactOS is pre-loaded with all those familiar Windows XP applicationsĭouble-click the virtual machine and it will boot, loading the Boot CD file and starting the ReactOS installation process. On the main screen you'll see a list of the new virtual machine's 'fake hardware' - find the Storage section and right-click the IDE Secondary Master: (Optical Drive] Empty entry. If you hit compatibility problems, disabling the audio and USB might help. Open the Network settings from the left-hand pane and click Advanced, then set Adapter Type to PCnet-PCI II (Am79C970A) before clicking OK. The newly created virtual machine should appear in the left-hand pane of the main VirtualBox screen right-click on it and select Settings. Click Next and then Create (to make a fake hard disk), leave the setting as VDI and click Next again, leave the setting as Dynamically allocated and click Next, then give the virtual machine something like 60GB of disk space before clicking Create. Click Next and set the memory size to 2,048MB (2GB) if your main PC has 4GB of RAM or less, only lend 1,024MB of memory to the virtual machine. Give the machine a name (ReactOS, for example) and select Windows XP (32-bit) from the Version drop-down menu. A great way to test any new OS is to run it on a virtual machine using the free VirtualBox applicationĭownload and install VirtualBox from (opens in new tab) and click New to start creating your virtual machine.

Win xp to win 10