A question from Yahoo! Answers:

Suppose a company has a client that uses windows 98 yet, you suggest client should upgrade to WinXP. why?

why should the client upgrade, granted there will most likely be added hardware costs.

A good service provider who cares about the client should make sure the client DOESN’T have to upgrade under any circumstances. This said, there are situations when the upgrade is required because some mission critical-piece of hardware or software that the client just acquired requires Windows XP. However, in a situation like this (especially it if involves expensive hardware) it may be better to replace the computer rather than to just upgrade the OS; for example, there may be issues with USB 2.0 support on older computers, and you won’t even know you have them until you upgrade.

A related development is when the client needs the computer to perform some server functions (for example, serve ASP pages for the local intranet). Normally, this would require IIS, but IIS cannot be deployed on Windows 98. In this case, however, there are alternatives; Windows 2000 Professional will do the job just fine, so there’s no pressing need to run for XP.