Specs:
- Compaq DeskPro EP6000
- Intel Pentium III-650MHz
- 64MB PC133 SDRAM
- 2GB WD Caviar IDE HDD
- Matrox G450 16MB AGP
- Compaq PCI audio, untested
- Generic 10/100 Ethernet, PCI
Installed ReactOS 0.3.0-RC1 from CD-ROM, after wiping out existing disk partitions using Linux fdisk and blanking the MBR. Took a few tries to get it just right, but ended up using 510MB FAT for C:, with no other partitions. (Wouldn't boot from anything larger, so I figured I'd try the safe FAT16 max size.) Did all partitioning from ReactOS installer. Used default installation options for everything.
FreeLoader wouldn't install correctly to the MBR; said it was there, but when I tried booting it failed. Worked just fine booting from a floppy; used Linux fdformat on another machine (fdformat -n /dev/fd0u1440) and rest from ReactOS installer. Booted very quickly, got through initial setup without any problems. For some reason didn't list floppy drive in Explorer, but accessed just fine from command prompt. Also noticed that winefile seems to be the only program capable of reporting free disk space, somewhat weird. Oh well, minor inconvenience AFAIC.
Desktop
Set up desktop at 800x600x32. Didn't want to do 1024x768 even if I specified in the installer, not sure if this is a hardware of software limitation (pretty sure the G450 can go much higher than that, although haven't used the machine for a while so not entirely sure). Very nice-looking desktop and fonts, much better than Windows.
Networking
Does not appear to work with my machine's generic Ethernet card. Attempted to install NETGEAR USB wireless adapter, but setup application would not load. Don't really need this machine online much, and I've already seen ReactOS's networking in QEMU anyway, so not a major problem for me.
Applications
Installed Firefox (1.5.0.4, official Mozilla.org Win32 binary) from CD. Installation went just fine, although would not start Firefox directly after installation. Worked just fine after a reboot. Actually ran very stable on my machine; had Firefox running on desktop 1, Notepad on desktop 2, and spent around 15 minutes or so designing a local Web page - c:\index.html - without a crash. Eventually shut the machine down manually after getting bored with it Very impressed. It did crash a couple of times before, first when I was browsing c:\ as a directory and then when I was poking around in the options dialog - had to shut down and restart, task manager refused to kill it - but just pulling it up and accessing a local file directly was almost effortless.
Running very fast on this machine, too, much faster than what I've seen of Windows (haven't used it in a while myself, and none of my machines run it, but it's definitely faster than what little I have seen). Considerably faster than on my regular desktop - Celeron-700, 256MB, running Firefox/GTK+2 on Linux - as well. Definitely impressed by the speed.
InfoZip's "unzip" - their official Win32 binary - ran just fine from the command line. Used it to extract OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 installation files. Had to restart a few times because it kept running out of memory, not sure how well ReactOS does memory management yet, but otherwise it went great. OOo's installer started up, but wouldn't do anything else, eventually ended up deleting it.
Didn't really get to test OOo 2.0.3. The "installer" actually just extracted the real installation program to the desktop, and by then it had eaten away most of the disk space I had so ended up deleting. I think I may have tried to run the OOo setup program once, but it didn't work.
AbiWord installed, but would not start. Using version 2.2.9, official Win32 binary. Have not tested newer version; my Linux boxes all run 2.2.9 because the newer ones require GNOME, so wanted to have the same version on all my machines for consistency.
I also managed to find a copy of MS Works 2000, one of the versions with Word included. Attempted to install Word, but failed, saying I needed a newer Microsoft installer. MS Works really must be an oxymoron Doesn't matter much to me, since I don't need any Microsoft stuff anyway, but might be an issue for other people.
Hot Wheels: Stunt Track Driver, a DirectX game from about 1998, would not install, claiming it was an "invalid executable format", and attempting to run directly from the CD resulted in it saying I didn't have the right DirectX version (it expects 6.0 or newer, included on CD). DirectX installer didn't want to work either.
WinZip 10.0's installer loaded, but failed because the latest Windows Help viewer wasn't available.
ReactOS's "ibrowser" loads just fine, but doesn't work without the Mozilla ActiveX control. Download window comes up, but closes because it doesn't have a net connection.
ReactOS Explorer works OK, but a bit quirky, and sometimes won't delete files/directories properly. Attempting to copy files from Explorer (drag&drop) crashes the machine.
Also have AVG AntiVirus, ZoneAlarm Personal, Thunderbird, and a few other programs; have not had an opportunity to test.
Anyway, just thought I should share, in case anyone finds this useful