My son is hounding me to upgrade to XP. Is this a good idea? If so, do I just reformat to put Xp on or is there another trick? 1.1 gig. 192 ram and 15 g HD

Hi Farang
Answer your second question first:
You need not wipe your system to install XP, there is a version available which will overwrite Win98 and keep your data
But once installed you will have some compatability issues with older programs stored on your hard drive, A bit of Housekeeping may be needed to find out?
Upgrade to XP needed ?
If it was this time last year I would say NO...But Now? I say take the Plunge because Microsoft are about to withdraw Technical support for Win98 very shortly Which means that new programs/utilities for 98 will become scarce.
You will find it easy to adapt to after 98 a lot of the same Items are in the same places.
And It is a more stable OS than 98 so those Fatal Error(blue) screens are a distant memory

Hi farang, here are some links you might find useful.
Windows XP Upgrade Advisor
Windows XP Home Edition System Requirements
Windows XP Professional System Requirements

To Farang & Bedstor:

Maybe Win XP is OK for you, however I found that Win XP Home Edition did not work for me because I still use programs that are DOS oriented. They would not work for me in Win XP.

I spent a week booting up to WIn XP & then went back to Win 98 2nd Edition.

farang,
I went from 98se to XP Pro, and havent looked back, of course, I have 98se on another partition of my pc too, *wink*, ounce of prevention as it were. I rarely use 98se on my main pc now though. Of course, a clean install is always more stable, but if you are careful, you should be able to upgrade safely. I may be able to help you get XP Pro if you'd like, just email me with your username and "XP" in the subject line. See ya later!

chris