I’m working on installing ReactOS in a VMware Fusion virtual machine this morning. It’s an interesting idea — a completely new operating system that is fully compatible with Windows XP — but I don’t give it much hope. They’ve been working on it for three or so years and it still has a way to go. By the time it’s usable for the general public, the technology will be WAY stale and the rest of the world would have moved on.

Still, it’s worth a look and a virtual machine is a perfect fit for this type of thing.
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From the ReactOS website….

“ReactOS® is a free, modern operating system based on the design of Windows® XP/2003. Written completely from scratch, it aims to follow the Windows® architecture designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level. This is not a Linux based system, and shares none of the unix architecture.
The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows® would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS is to allow you to remove Windows® and install ReactOS without the end user noticing the change.

Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.9 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is not recommended for everyday use.”