ReactOS -- The Crazy Open Source Attempt To Rewrite Windows From Scratch

This presentation will be held in English feel free to ask your questions in French. Cette présentation sera en anglais.

Note: This talk will be highly technical in nature and is intended for Software Developers only.

Note: Cette conférence s'adresse aux développeurs de logiciels seulement.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/f/1/8/600_285156632.jpeg Alex Ionescu

Bio

Alex Ionescu is the Chief Architect at CrowdStrike, Inc. Alex is a world-class security architect and consultant expert in low-level system software, kernel development, security training, and reverse engineering. He is coauthor of the last two editions of the Windows Internals series, along with Mark Russinovich and David Solomon. His work has led to the fixing of many critical kernel vulnerabilities, as well as to over a few dozen non-security bugs. Previously, Alex was the lead kernel developer for ReactOS, an open source Windows clone written from scratch, for which he wrote most of the Windows NT–based subsystems. During his studies in Computer Science, Alex worked at Apple on the iOS kernel, boot loader, and drivers on the original core platform team behind the iPhone, iPad and AppleTV. Alex is also the founder of Winsider Seminars & Solutions Inc., a company that specializes in low- level system software, reverse engineering and security trainings for various institutions. In the last three years, he has also contributed to patches and development in two major commercially used operating system kernels.

ReactOS -- The Crazy Open Source Attempt To Rewrite Windows From Scratch

Abstract:

In this talk, Alex Ionescu, lead kernel developer for the ReactOS project since 2004 (and recently returning after a long hiatus) will talk about the project's current state, having just passed revision 60000 in the SVN repository. Alex will also cover some of the project's goals, the development and testing methodology being such a massive undertaking (an open source project to reimplement all of Windows from scratch!), partnership with other open source projects (MinGW, Wine, Haiku, etc...).

Alex will talk both about the infrastructure side about running such a massive OS project (but without Linux's corporate resources), as well as the day-to-day development challenges of a highly distributed team and the lack of Win32 internals knowledge that makes it hard to recruit. Finally, Alex will do a few demos of the OS, try out a few games and applications, Internet access, etc, and of course, show off a few blue screens of death.

Alex will also show how modern builds of ReactOS can be built straight out of Visual Studio, and how you can source debug the kernel with Microsoft's own debugging tools, such as WinDBG, stepping through essentially-Windows-kernel code to debug issues in actual drivers or applications. If time allows, Alex will show a bit on how one can reverse engineer a Windows function/driver to understand its internals, which beyond ReactOS can also help with debugging problems.

Agenda for this event:

6:15 - 6:30 pm Registration

6:30 - 6:35 pm Welcome and intro

6:35 - 7:35 pm ReactOS -- The Crazy Open Source Attempt To Rewrite Windows From Scratch by Alex Ionescu

7:35 - 7:45 pm Q&A

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Google volunteers wearing Google Montreal t-shirts will be present at this event to answer any questions you may have.

See you there!