Virtually all applications that work in Win98 will work in XP
I have to take issue with that, Mac.
With Win 98 it was possible for programs to still access the hardware directly, bypassing the OS. And many, many programs did so, particularly games software.
This is prohibited in the 32-bit Windows OS's (NT, 2K and XP - and Vista).
Some 16-bit programs work fine (properly written), others work in compatibility mode in 2K or XP, but many don't. I have a box full of games (mostly the kids') that don't work under any circumstances. I remember quite a few from work also.
SD