This method is pretty much 100% going to fail. Windows 9x (which is a DOS based OS) hardware drivers are simply incompatible with Windows XP (which is NT based). They don't work in XP. Never. Ever.
i think you are too young when Win98 is released.
Yeah, right.
I started programming on systems like a VAX 11/780 and CP/M.
the idea of DOS based OS only during the era of Win3.11... Win98 is fully 32 bits. i havent recall any incompatibility issue between 98 and XP, only during 3.11 to 95 transition when 16 bits to 32 bits app forward compatibility was an issue. if not because of USB support, i think i will still in 98 right now...
I'm sorry but that's really a load of nonsense.
For a start, Windows 95 and Windows 98
*ARE* based on DOS (actually DOS 7.0), which is required for them to even boot. Windows 9x is also not fully 32bit, in fact it's a 32bit/16bit hybrid using a virtual machine manager for the 32bit parts on top of the 16bit DOS. It's a true single user system, with limited multitasking and no memory protection (which was one of the reason it was easy to crash). Because Windows 9x is based on DOS, DOS drivers and TSRs worked in Windows 9x as well (and were often the only way to get older hardware to work with it.)
if all Windows version are brothers, 98 and XP are the closest brother,
Commonality between Win 98 and XP is roughly the same like a kitchen chair and a rubber boat
98 and XP have very little in common. XP is not based on Windows 9x, it's based on Windows NT. That means no DOS, true 32bit with memory protection and multitasking, full multi-user support, and 16bit support in text-mode emulation only. Under the hood the architecture is completely different, and it requires drivers that are written for the NT kernel.
Having said that, Windows 98 introduced the Windows Driver Model (WDM) in addition to support for 16bit DOS and 32bit VxD drivers, and because WDM was also used in Windows 2000 the idea was to get a common set of drivers for Win98/ME and W2k. However, this never worked out, and pretty much any hardware that supported both platforms required separate WDM drivers for Win98/ME and W2k (in XP, WDM has also seen various changes, and while XP can run W2k driver the other way around usually doesn't work).
All which means that aside from text 'drivers' for stuff like monitors and modems you always need XP specific drivers for XP. Windows 98 drivers will not work.
top 2 of my favourite Windows... and if you have used and know many Windows, other OSes will hide in a closet if its about forward compatibilitiness.
So I guess you haven't used many other operating systems then.