can exe applications run on newly devloped operating system

[faisal00813]

hi
dudes I am very newbie to OS development
One basic question:
Can executable file like Windows games and softwares can run on an OS that I develop
because if yes then why we dont see an alternative for Windows
Only Linux but don't run exe apps

OK
bye
god bless u all

[cyr1x]

It's completely possible, BUT it will take you ages to have at least a rudimentary compatibility.
There's actually a project which tries to do this. It's called ReactOS.

[faisal00813]

well i was thinking of devloping an OS for gamers because wndows takes lot of resources in background and leave very less for games

[AJ]

Hi,

The reason (one of the many reasons) you don't see Windows clones all over the place, is that it would take a huge amount of work. You have already been pointed to reactOS, which is well worth a look.

In order to establish binary compatibility, you would need to emulate most of the Windows API not to mention DirectX support for games. As for running windows executables on Linux, see the WINE project. And Linux certainly does run executable files - it simply doesn't have Windows binary compatibility as standard (in fact, it hardly has Linux binary compatibility ).

Cheers,
Adam

[M-Saunders]

Well, just consider this: it has taken the ReactOS project, a team of experienced programmers, over a decade to achieve basic Windows compatibility (and not really for newer games). So on your own you're seriously talking several decades. Windows is made of up of tens of millions of lines of source code; you simply can't make a compatible OS without a big team and years of effort.

M

[Hyperdrive]

Can executable file like Windows games and softwares can run on an OS that I develop
because if yes then why we dont see an alternative for Windows
Only Linux but don't run exe apps

In general you can achieve supporting Windows software in your own OS. You have to provide all the API functions that Windows has and make them have the same software visible effects that you see in Windows. And yes, you can run Windows applications on Linux based systems, e.g. by using Wine. And it works more or less well.

The API an operating system provides to applications written for it is in my opinion a big point amongst many things that has much influence on design aspects for the inner workings of an OS. So, if you want to have an API like Windows, your OS does things like Windows to some extent. But - where is the point of yet another Windows? You can wait for Microsoft to release their next version of it.

There are many alternatives to Windows out there. One example is ReactOS.

Some more thoughts...

First, you typically don't see alternatives on preinstalled computers you can get in your favourite store next to you. This has many reasons. One is, that Microsoft has enough market power to have vendors what they want them to do. But this is not the forum to discuss such things.

Second, depending on what you try to do, there are different solutions out there - and in their respective are they are the better way to go than using Windows. There are some operating systems for the embedded systems in cars or airplanes; some real-time systems for this and that; there are some systems for cell phones; special purpose operating systems for entertainment appliances like settop boxes, gaming consoles and so forth. They may be influenced from Windows or Linux, both or none of them. But they have totally different design. Admitted, they won't run Windows applications. But at the end they are all more or less alternatives to Windows. It's just the question what you try to achieve.

As a last point: Why do you want an alternative OS to Windows to "Windows applications". It doesn't make much sense. For an OS to support applications written for other systems is more like an compatibility issue or marketing argument than a real design goal.

Please note: All the above points are my personal opinion - there may be other. And sure enough there are more arguments to bring forward, it's not an exhaustive list.

Regards,
Thilo

[stephenj]

The problem that everyone has been skirting around is called "Bug Compatibility." To make an OS capable of running software with compatibility, you'd need to make sure that the really undocumented "features" a.k.a. bugs are still present.

And the sad truth is that Microsoft has been building bug compatible software, on top of bug compatible software for almost three decades now! Which sometimes requires a kludge which leads to more bugs... That need to be present in later versions. This cycle has snowballed the number of bugs in Windows.

And this ignores the decades of different engineers writing APIs using different styles!

[faisal00813]

thank you all of u
U all answered many of my unasked questions which were very important.
thank you