[Omega]

NES_master: Not that I'm a huge proponent of XP, but by permission crap do you mean the product activation junk?  They don't have that in XP Professional (not sure about Home).  As for sending an error report after crashes, it gives you a choice to send or not send, and if you do choose to send, you can either give them contact information, or remain anonymous.  The GUI is customizable, as well.  You can choose to either use the Luna theme (the 'pretty' one) or the classic windows theme, with all the same customization options as with Win2k or Win98.  I personally use the classic Windows theme modified with my own color choices.  To deal with the compatability issues, Microsoft has integrated a later feature of Win2k (SP2 I think): compatability layers.  From what I understand after you specify in the properties of the EXE what OS you want to run the program in, Windows will basically emulate the environment of said OS for said EXE.  I've used it once, and it worked fine.  Most DOS applications work as well, from what I've heard, but I haven't personally tried any.