KC, doggeral’s ideas were good. Maybe you can see into your network settings (Control Panel) if sharing printers were allowed or not, and, of course, other settings of the network (name, DNS, IP, etc.). I have the same network (Win98 + WinXP) and sometimes the network goes down… Could be the order of the boot: I suggest first XP and then 98. Are you using ICS (Internet Connection Sharing)? Which computer is the gateway (the one thats connects to the Internet)?
Is WinXP firewall (internal Microsoft firewall of XP) turned on?
You said is not a firewall trouble… I’m not quite sure… As I say, I have the same configuration and the majority of the times the firewall cause a failure in the LAN (I use ZoneAlarm in both computers). If you need more help, feel free to send me an IM or e-mail 