Windows XP users have serious cases of Mac OS X lust. Trying to simulate Mac OS X on Windows XP is turning into quite the hobby lately. While Microsoft is taking its own sweet time (years) to come up with a version of Windows (Longhorn) that tries to look and work like Apple’s Mac OS X, Windows XP users are taking matters into their own hands while they wait and wait, then wait some more.

“Look closely, and you’ll see that its creator has done a very good job; although the machine is running Windows XP, the interface is almost indistinguishable from an OS X machine,” Leander Kahney writes for Wired News. In the screenshots included in the Wired article, “notice the dock, desktop background, menus, system font and icons for applications and folders. Even the keyboard shortcuts belong to the Mac OS X.”

Kahney writes, “The system belongs to Kurt871, who won the latest monthly screenshot contest at AquaXP, a site devoted to turning XP boxes into faux Macs. AquaXP has 9,000 members. The site is named after Apple Computer’s distinctive Aqua Mac OS X interface. A similar site, Aqua-Soft.org, has 16,000 members. And there are a dozen or more sites like them, according to the links collected at Iceman’s Emulation Page.”

“Clearly, emulating OS X is an engaging hobby for a significant number of Windows XP users. A recently released theme for XP that looks like the Jaguar iteration of OS X was downloaded 50,000 times, according to its creator, Iceman,” Kahney writes. “‘There are a lot of people out there who really like Apple and the Mac and this is the next best way to support them,’ said Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock, which makes several Windows XP customization tools popular with the PC-to-Mac crowd. Wardell said the best way to support Apple, of course, is to get a Mac, but a lot of his customers are in a youthful age bracket, and feel they can’t yet afford a Mac, given Apple’s reputation for charging premium prices.”

Full article and screenshots of Windows XP trying (and failing) to be Mac OS X here.

MacDailyNews Take: Moo. Want the real thing? US$799 for an Apple eMac is the cheapest way to do it by buying new. An eMac is a quality machine and will do a great job for those wanting the Mac experience. With the real Mac OS X, plus you actually get all of the Mac-only applications, like iCal, iMovie, the Mac version of iTunes, iSync, the ability to use .Mac, iPhoto, iChat AV, Mail, GarageBand, AppleScriptability, etc. Plenty of refurbished Mac OS X machines are available for much less, too. Just Google “refurbished Mac” to find out more. Info on adding a Mac to your computing arsenal, it’s actually quite easy, here.