Tag Archives: arcaos

Website issues impacting new and renewal orders

Our most recent website updates (mandatory, for security reasons) seem to have led to some instabilities. We have worked to manage the situation while we continue to solve the underlying problem(s). In the interim, customers may experience intervals of exceptional slowness on the site and there is a potential for failed payment processing.

We apologize for the inconvenience. If your order fails to process, please try again.

Meanwhile, we believe we have solved the issue with renewal orders not properly displaying the required credit card input fields for payment. Renewal orders should add the renewal to the cart and land on the Shop page. From there, proceed to checkout. If you find that your link has taken you to the checkout page directly, select the link there to visit your shopping cart, then use the Proceed to checkout button (or use the Renew button for your subscription from your Download Center).

At times, changes to our website are forced upon us by the software developers, generally in response to a security concern. It is impossible to predict how an update to one facet of the site may impact something else. We do our best to handle these situations when they arise, and appreciate your patience.

Warpstock hotel room block is closing

As reported here previously, Warpstock, the annual gathering of OS/2 users, developers, engineers, and enthusiasts is scheduled for Friday, November 7 through Sunday, November 9, 2025 at the Holiday Inn Little Rock Airport Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

Among those scheduled to present live are Arca Noae Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal and Dmitriy Kuminov, CPO of bww bitwise works, GmbH, an Arca Noae strategic partner.

The hotel room block for this year’s event will be closing October 5, so be sure to register for the event and to book your hotel stay soon.

For more information regarding planned sessions and for details on the event, please visit the Warpstock 2025 event page.

Warpstock is an annual event hosted by Warpstock Corporation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization unaffiliated with Arca Noae, whose volunteers are dedicated to promoting education, information, and social opportunities to those persons interested in computer operating systems and related software.

Learn, share, contribute at Warpstock 2025

Warpstock, the annual gathering of OS/2 users, developers, engineers, and enthusiasts is scheduled for Friday, November 7 through Sunday, November 9, 2025 at the Holiday Inn Little Rock Airport Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

Arca Noae Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal, will be on hand to present not only his annual roadmap update, sharing things planned for the next releases of ArcaOS, but also to moderate an OS/2 quiz to test the depth of knowledge of the audience. Of course, there are several other sessions scheduled, with likely more to come.

If you’ve never attended a Warpstock event, you’re in for a treat. In addition to knowledgeable speakers and the ability to take them aside to bend their ears about what you’d like to see in terms of improvements to the operating system or new applications, there is plenty of time to socialize with like-minded people, and put faces to names of people you may recognize from online interactions. You literally never know who may turn up at Warpstock!

Register now to take advantage of the early bird discount, and get an even better deal on this conference (which is already a great value for the information and opportunities it provides each year).

The Download Center is now the Download & Renewal Center

In January of 2023, we introduced the ArcaOS Download Center. After expanding this download center to include all subscriptions and their associated downloads, we renamed it simply the Download Center. However, because this portal has so much more functionality which may not be apparent without visiting it first, we have again modified the name to the Download & Renewal Center.

If you are not familiar with this handy tool, in the left navigation area you should see the Download & Renewal Center link. Clicking it will bring you to a consolidated listing of your ArcaOS licenses and associated downloads followed by your other subscriptions and their associated downloads. Need a new ISO? No problem. Just find your ArcaOS license with active support, and request a new one. In addition, no matter which type of subscription you have, you’ll be able to see at a glance when the subscription is set to expire, and have the ability to simply click a button to renew a subscription. That’s it!

So, if you are using an email client or web mail which for some reason does not properly provide you with a usable link in your renewal reminder email, simply visit your Download & Renewal Center, select the license with expiring support, and click Renew.

Warpstock Europe 2025: A Huge Success!

If you weren’t able to attend or watch the live stream of the sessions at this year’s Warpstock Europe event in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, you should soon be able to watch the polished, post-production videos linked from the site. There was a lot of great information presented, and of course, a good deal of audience participation and discussion. In all, the event was a tremendous success!

There are currently two annual Warpstock events, run by two separate though coordinating entities: Warpstock, the original event, typically held in North America in the fall, sponsored by Warpstock Corporation, a US 501(c)3 non-profit organization, dedicated to educating users about the use of alternative operating systems; and Warpstock Europe, typically held in central Europe in the spring, sponsored by Stichting VOICE International, a Dutch non-profit entity.

If you’ve never attended a Warpstock event, the experience is unique. You get to spend time one-on-one with not only like-minded users, but with the developers shaping the OS/2 landscape and the engineers supporting it. There is plenty of time outside of actual classroom sessions to relax and exchange ideas, request improvements and new features, and to break out into smaller groups for ad hoc discussions.

The next Warpstock event is scheduled for Friday, November 7 through Sunday, November 9, 2025, in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. Early registration is now open, providing a generous discount for those who register for the full conference before August 1. Once again, some of the Arca Noae staff will be on hand to present roadmap and how-to sessions, as well as others with various areas of expertise.

Dynamic Icons version 2.5.6 for ArcaOS released

Dynamic Icons has been updated to version 2.5.6, and is now available as part of the Support & Maintenance subscription for your ArcaOS product. Please log into your account and see your ArcaOS order details page to access your software. This update is available for 5.0 and 5.1 ArcaOS licensees with active Support & Maintenance.

Version 2.5.6 introduces a new caching scheme which essentially eliminates duplicated icons, significantly reducing memory overhead and dramatically improves desktop responsiveness. In addition, it is now possible to specify different icon size parameters for Tree and Icon views, a longstanding and often requested enhancement.

For those who rely on Dynamic Icons, this update is a must-have.

Many, many thanks to Rich Walsh for his hard work on this update.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems and haven’t yet moved up to ArcaOS, this is a great reason to do so now. If you’ve already made the switch, but haven’t renewed renewed your support subscription, this is also a good time. Not sure what’s coming next? Have a look at our product roadmap pages.

Come join us at Warpstock Europe 2025 this weekend!

If you’ve never attended a Warpstock or Warpstock Europe event, these are truly unique and enjoyable experiences. This weekend, in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, Arca Noae Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal, and Chief UI Architect, Alex Taylor will be on hand to present and answer questions regarding ArcaOS past, present, and future.

It’s not too late to register for the event. Visit the Warpstock Europe homepage for more information and to purchase tickets.

Lewis will provide the latest roadmap for ArcaOS 5.1, including highlights of development and planning for the 5.1.2 release. Alex will be discussing what it takes to create a localized ArcaOS version, and for developers, how to write or update existing applications to take advantage of some of the newer dynamic font sizing support in ArcaOS.

Why update or upgrade to ArcaOS 5.1.1?

If you’re holding off upgrading from ArcaOS 5.0 to 5.1 or updating from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1, here are a few things to consder to get you off the fence.

ArcaOS 5.1.1, over a year and a half in development, incorporates over 50 improvements and refinements, from smoother installation and better integration with other operating systems to better stability and usability of the system. Here are a few points to consider from the changelog:

Now available in four languages (with more on the way): English, German, Spanish, and Russian. More comfortable computing in your native language? This is all made easier with ArcaOS 5.1.1.
For existing English installations, upgrading from 5.0 or updating from 5.1.0 could not be easier. Back up your system, boot from the installation media, select the option to update/upgrade, and select your existing installation from the list. The rest of the procedure is automatic.
Multimedia support has been upgraded and enhanced. Not only has the multimedia subsystem been translated to the system language, but if you have a CD collection and a modern PC, ArcaOS now handles digital transfers and supports the GnuDB CD track identification database.
Both remote control of the ArcaOS system and control of other systems from ArcaOS has been greatly enhanced with a new VNC server and client, supporting features found in UltraVNC, such as chat, file transfer, and encryption for web clients.
Of course we’ve also included the latest ACPI and updated device drivers for USB, video, mouse (new, major revision), FAT32 filesystem (for better interoperability and data exchange with other operating systems), and even a new keyboard driver for better operation on more hardware.

In short, 5.1.1 is the most stable, best performing ArcaOS release to date, and provides a truly modern OS/2 computing experience for PCs. It’s also quite at home in a virtual environment, running under Oracle VirtualBox or VMware ESXi or Workstation.

Best of all, for ArcaOS 5.1 licensees with active support subscriptions, the update from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1 is absolutely free. Let your subscription lapse? You can still renew and get the 5.1.1 release for no additional charge. Still running 5.0? Now is a great time to take advantage of the steep upgrade discounts offered to upgraders.

Arca Noae Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal, to speak at Warpstock Europe 2025

It’s official: Arca Noae’s Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal, is scheduled be live and in person at Warpstock Europe 2025 in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, May 16-18, to speak about Arca Noae, ArcaOS, new features in version 5.1.1, and future plans for the OS.

More information on this informative event is available on the Warpstock Europe website.

Driver updates now available

MultiMac With the release of ArcaOS 5.1.1, several drivers have been updated. These updates are already included in ArcaOS 5.1.1, but if you are not updating to ArcaOS 5.1.1 you can still take advantage of some of the new driver updates. They are now available as part of the Support & Maintenance subscription for your ArcaOS product, and in the Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription, Please log into your account and visit your ArcaOS Download Center to access your software. Specifically, these updated packages are:

USB 12.17 (updated from 12.16)
Panorama 1.20 (updated from 1.19)
ACPI 3.23.18 (updated from 3.23.17)
Multimac

These releases include minor fixes and enhancements over their previous versions, and while recommended, are not considered critical updates. Again, if you have ArcaOS 5.1.1, you already have all of these updates. Here are the highlights of what’s new:

USB 12.17

Enhanced USBMOUSE to handle more mouse features.

Panorama 1.20

Enhanced to select font size for ArcaOS installer.
NLV enhancements.

ACPI 3.23.18

Fixed acpidump to work on more systems.

MultiMac

Minor updates to E1000B 1.1.9, MMAE 1.1.9, MMRE 1.1.10, and MMJME 1.1.4

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems and haven’t yet moved up to ArcaOS, this is a great reason to do so now. If you’ve already made the switch, but haven’t renewed renewed your support subscription, this is also a good time. Thinking of upgrading your current ArcaOS 5.0 installation? Now is also a good time.

If you have an Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription, these driver package are available for download from the Arca Noae website as part of your Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription. Please log into your account in order to access your software.