ryanmartini - dude you're talking about trying to make something useful out of a POS.
Win-Xp may be bloated as all hell, but compared to 98SE - it just bl**dy works.
I useta run 98SE and BSOD's were at least a daily routine - at best every other day.
As often as not, when I re-booted Scandisk would truncate yet another piece of some
data-file, application or OS file. Every month or two, I got the joy of re-installing the OS and all my apps.
I finally got fed up enough to make a change when I built my last new system. I went
with 512MB Ram, a 60GB hard-drive and Win-Xp Pro. I've never since looked back!
Sure, I can still crash Xp once in a while (in decreasing order of frequency):
1. When I push something WAY too far in OCing the box.
2. When some pi**-poor app or game decides to go berserker.
3. When some never-enough-damned "marketing-genius" (oxymoron)
or "l33t-h4xor" (another one) magages to get past both Firewall and AV scanner.
Point is - Never have I had Xp just "go belly-up" for no discernable reason.
Just for insurance, I keep a known good Image-Copy of my C: drive on another drive,
and backup volatile files regularly. So, even in the worst cases, I just start an image
restore. Then 15 - 20 mins later I'm back in business.
Bottom Line - If you LIKE constantly fiddling, stay with 98SE; if you want an OS that
works, move up to Xp. Did I mention Xp is faster than 98 (at least seems so to me).