Re: W98 v's XP
You might also consider just why you want to upgrade to XP? I still run Win98SE (apparently a lot more stable than the original Win98) on an old laptop at home, because a more knowledgeable friend pointed out to me that it's a lot less vulnerable to trojans, viruses and other internet nasties — these tend to be designed specifically to attack Win2K/ME/XP systems. I must say I've never had any problems with it, and it doesn't keep needing to download new patches, security fixes, service packs etc. the way my XP machine in work does...
There are very few apps that won't run under Win98SE (except for post-v.7.0 releases of the Windows Media Player. But the older version of that brute at least allowed you to install a codecs pack permanently, instead of having to install it 'on demand' everytime it came across a different file-type...:rolleyes )
...Call me old-fashioned!
Dr. M.