I feel like I remember seeing something like this get posted and celebrated in this or some other techie community, and I’m interested in screwing around with other OSes but I can’t remember which one it might be. What’s your favorite 90s-flavored Linux desktop environment / distribution?
I don’t think it’s what you’re looking for but what your post reminds me of is ReactOS, though that’s more of a rewrite of actual Windows than a Linux distro.