Actually ShippMA that is not always true about explorer.exe restarting. It is SUPPOSED to restart when it crashes, but sometimes that does not always work and you can get stuck. Now I haven't run Windows 98 in a LONG time, so I don't remember if you can get to any sort of RUN if you press Ctrl+Alt+Del whenever explorer.exe does not restart.

In Windows XP there is still the same problem. I know though if you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del the task manager will come up and you can get a RUN dialog box to restart explorer.exe.

In general Windows98 (or really all OS that are not built off of an NT platform) does not manage memeory correctly. It might be able to reassign alloctated memory again once it's free, or might not be able to reasign all of it. But then again there are always ups and downs with every OS.

Personally I like Windows XP because I think it brings the best of both works. The stability and management of an NT platform, but also will let you play your games like Windows 98 and such. Because I've tried those third party software applications before for OSes like Windows 98 and I have never really noticed anything great about them. Plus I don't like the fact that I have to use MORE resources to run a app just to be able to be able to clean out my RAM. I'd rather let the OS do that and take less resources up that way.

Just a thought,
~AciD