1. Build environment To build the system you need either mingw32 installed on Windows or a mingw32 cross compiler running on unix. 2. Building ReactOS To build from Windows run 'make' (wihout the quotes) from the top directory. To build from unix, edit rules.mak and change the PREFIX variable to the correct value for your cross-compiler, then run 'make'. 3. Installation The system can only be installed on the first partition on the first harddisk. The partition must be formatted as FAT16 or FAT32. The system can only be started from DOS and not from a Windows DOS-prompt. ReactOS can be installed from the source distribution or from the binary distribution. The two ways to install ReactOS are explained below. 3.1 Installation from sources To install ReactOS after building it, type 'make install'. This will create the directory 'reactos' in the top directory. Copy this directory to the root of your first partition on your first harddisk. This is usually c:\ on a Windows machine. If you don't want to copy the files manually every time you run a 'make install', you can specify the directory where the files are to be copied to during installation. In rules.mak find the variable INSTALL_DIR and change the assigned value to the name of the directory where the files are to be copied to. If you are using Windows this could be: INSTALL_DIR = c:\reactos If you are on linux this could be: INSTALL_DIR = /mnt/windows/reactos Save the changes to rules.mak and run 'make install' to install the files to the new location. 3.2 Installation from binany distribution To install ReactOS from the binary distribution, extract the archive contents to c:\reactos. Remember to extract the files with full paths. 4. Booting ReactOS Startup in DOS mode. 'cd' to c:\reactos and type 'boot' and press . ReactOS will now boot and when it has booted, you are asked for a username and password. Just press twice as ReactOS does not currently have user validation. A simple shell is started where you can use simple commands like 'cd' and 'dir'. You may also want to try running the enhanced shell, cmd.exe, found in the rosapps CVS module. 5. Help If you run into problems or have suggestions for making ReactOS better, please surf to the address below and subscribe to one or more of the mailing lists. http://www.reactos.com/home/mailing.html ReactOS Development Team