So as a totally unfair test, I thought I’d load SQL server 6.5 on it.
SQL Server 6.5 on ReactOS
After copying in some NT 4.0 dll’s regarding licensing it’ll start to install but the service itself doesn’t work.
bummer.
MSDE2000 didn’t work either.
And the setup program from SQL 4.21 just crashed.
Duke Nukem 3D (shareware) seems to work in their newer NTVDM, as demonstrated on their YouTube channel, although only without sound (for me, under VBox using QEMU bundle .vmdk). However, lots of other stuff (e.g. DJGPP) still don’t work.
It’s very impressive that they’ve accomplished so much, but the overall stability leaves much to be desired. And no, the liveCD didn’t boot on native hardware for me, sadly.
For those who cannot make the livecd work on real hardware, 2 weeks before the ReactOS team released a 0.4 version customized for FOSDEM 2016 (that you can find at https://sourceforge.net/projects/reactos/files/ReactOS/0.4.0-FOSDEM2016/ ) which consists in a hybridcd, containing a ramdisk livecd which can be used when the regular livecd doesn’t work. That version of ReactOS does not differ a lot from the released 0.4.0, so it is worth a try too.
I came accross your blog and could not hold myself spending an hour and a half. Then, I saw the ReactOS part, which I have some information these days. ReactOS hit 4.13 as a stable version anf moving to 4.15 in the master branch. You might like to have another glance at it, and maybe contribute. Who knows?
Oh sure, you had me at ‘stable’!
Oh, well. It’s still “alpha” but better than the latest version you tried.
Also, feel free to join the Mattermost channel for any issues you might get. They are a helpful and welcoming community as I witness.