The Windows File Manager lives again and runs on all currently supported version of Windows, including Windows 10. I welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions.
Open source under an MIT-license, and runs on modern versions of Windows. This is certainly a blast from the past.
And it’s MIT licensed too! Looks like ReactOS can include a file manager that actually works from now on.
You meant, they weren’t able to reach a 90s file manager level on their own ? And they expect to create a whole 00s compatible operating system ?
No. No one actually expects them to do all the work. They take the really difficult parts from Wine, and repackage them as an OS. Still difficult work, but being open source they share with others, and that’s a good thing.
As for being able to create a file manager on their own, well its been a while since I tried React. It was pretty much garbage the last time I tried it 7-8 years ago with my simple win32 hello world program from early 2000s crashing and burning. But, I’m sure they’ve made a lot of progress since then.
Though you are right with Wine providing difficult parts, what they provide is still userland working in userland.
The really really difficult part is the NT kernel they were able to implement: Device driver infrastructure, file system infrastructure, scheduling, virtual memory management, networking, etc.
Edited 2018-04-10 03:35 UTC
True, its not an easy job they have for themselves. Any operating system kernel is not easy.
Wine File Manager provides only a basic set of feaures, the ones needed for, you know, file management. It simply can’t support extra-features linked to the Windows OS because… it is not supposed to work on top of the Windows OS. For example it can’t add SMB shares because Wine does not require Samba in order to work.
Buuuut ReactOS ships with it’s own implementation of explorer, which is buggy due to incomplete shell32 API’s. Given that FileManager has roots in Win3.1 (before shell32 was implemented), it should work better on ReactOS
I think next week they’re planning on releasing Trumpet Winsock under an MIT license. Perfect for you modem users out there (finally!).
As many know Trumpet Winsock is not from Microsoft.
And the creator never got a lot of money, so I doubt willing to spend any time on such a thing.
Maybe it would change if a lot of people donate:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2282875
Edited 2018-04-11 12:37 UTC
“Hey I found this obsolete and useless code on one of the CDs on the rack. Let’s release it and score some points with the gullible open source guys. It will also be an excuse to get some news items published in tech advertising venues others call media.”
Obsolete code wouldn’t even be able to run on modern versions of Windows. They actually did take the time to convert the source code so that it runs on modern versions Windows *AND* they also extended the original version so that it has a few more modern features.
So all in all, they did more than just release a bunch of old source code.
I’ve always hated Explorer, and one of the first things I always install with a new Windows machine is PowerDesk – a File-Manger-like clone. I always configure it with 2 panes split vertically in the style of Norton (and Midnight) Commander. I downloaded the source and used Visual Studio community to build it. It’s b-a-a-a-a-c-k! It only took 23 years…
I always liked File Manager a lot more than Explorer – just seemed more logical to see the physical disk structure as opposed to the whole My Computer, My Documents etc. I’m excited to give it a spin again after all these years
It’s logical because you can make a mental model of a recursive directory tree in your head and navigate it. Those shortcut folders are for the deeply retarded who can’t.
Or because the directory structure got completely berserk and complexly nested hierarchy. Regarding the Docs, Images, Sounds, Downloads links, I really thank Microsoft for this neat trick that help my parents to find their way without needing useless knowledge of the file system organization. Power users knows their shit and won’t bother with that anyway.
… not an Orthodox file manager, so it’s irrelevant!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_managers
Edited 2018-04-09 20:37 UTC
I prefer Directory Opus (the amiga version). Worker is a nice clone / work-alike of that.
I wish somebody would compile it and put a binary somewhere for our convenience.
Here it is.
https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile/releases/tag/v10.0
Thanks!
At least better than nautilus. Awful crap.
https://opensource.microsoft.com/pdf/microsoft-contribution-license-…
Its one thing to be open source. Its another to be useful.
Microsoft CLA prevents many parties from working with upstream.
MIT provides no patent grant So any new feature added to winfile could get you into legal trouble.
You grant Microsoft, and those who receive the
Submission directly or indirectly from Microsoft.
This means to be sure your patch is covered you have to submit it upstream.
This is a clause and half appears on the patent grant and the copyright grant. Also you only get this if you sign the CLA. So just downloading winfile and building it with MIT license you are not ensured for patent grant.
This is the one issue with CLA yes to submit is one thing but CLA like Microsoft start covering items you need to generally distribute it and those items really should have been part of the general source code license/licenses.
when xtree and xtree-gold emerged