At least Win98 doesn't hog all the memory and think
that all humans are brainless idiots; like a certain OS...
oh where was I;

For the Windows 98 pc to get an IP address for itself, it
needs to know the address of the DHCP server, in this
case, your router. Might be something like 192.168.0.1 you
should be able to find it out on your XP pc.

Then you'de want the Win98 pc to be able to resolve IP
addresses on the internet from site names, you could try
adding the router's IP address as a gateway.

You shouldn't blame the OS because you're to lazy to learn
how to do the stuff yourself ~_^