My configuration:
VMware VM
Xeon processor E5-2667
512 MB of RAM
DX 9.0c installed
I followed the instructions, put firefox and xul.dll in XP SP3 compatibility mode, but it still gave the "couldn't load XPCOM" error. Then I deleted all entries except xul.dll from dependentlibs.list and the browser started working.
I downloaded the offline chrome installers and unpacked them, then copied the executable to the browser libraries folder, set it to XP compatibility mode and ran. Not even sure if I used Blackwingcat's Chrome Tool.
I've tested very early Chrome versions up to 5.0.307.1. Later ones did not start.
You can download them from Oldversion.