The easiest way out of this problem is to run the Network Setup Wizard on one of the XP Machines and make a Floppy to install on the 98 machines.
First run the Network Setup Wizard on the computer that is directly connected to the Internet this should hopefully be an XP Box and enable File & Printer Sharing. The run the same Wizard on the other XP machine and enable File & Printer Sharing as well as making sure that you are using the same Workgroup Name. Now that you have the 2 XP boxes networked you should be able to see the Shared Documents Folder as you should have nothing else shared at this stage.
Then with the floppy that you made on the XP machine go to one of the 98 Boxes and insert the floppy and open My Computer and then the A Drive and run the utility on the floppy, you'll need to reboot the 98 machine before the task is complete so remember to remove the floppy and on the reboot complete the Network Setup and remember to have File & Printer Sharing Enabled and make sure that the same Workgroup Name is used here. Do the same of the other 98 computer and then you are ready to start sharing files. At this point in time you should be able to see the XP machines from the 98 boxes but not the 98 Machines from the XP Boxes or the other 98 computer.
You then need to share something on each 98 box to allow them to be seen on the network and you'll be given the option of having a password if you want one on any thing shared. To do this right click on a Drive/Folder/File and left click on Share File/Folder or whatever it is you want to share, a window will open with the name of the file/folder/printer or whatever and you can just chose to share this item and then click finish, if necessary you can insert a password here to prevent unauthorised access if this is important buy with most Home Networks this isn't an issue.
Once you have shared the items that you want shared you should have a complete network running.
Col
