I've not been too happy with either of the portables I have, for precisely the reasons cited. Ports/connectors expected seem to disappear, and you get stuff that "somebody" decided you need, instead of what should be there. On my latest, they left off the MIDI connector in order to give me 5-channel surround sound speaker connections - with no warning before delivery. Why would I buy a portable that makes me lug around 5 speakers?

There are quite a number of ways to network/connect two machines, but that involves decisions about what hardware you have, and what you prefer to get.

The "cleanest" connection would be to get an ethernet card for the PC Card slot on the old machine, a small hub, and a couple of short 10Base-T cables. Hubs come in two kinds - the "switching hub" is preferred; but either would work for your present needs.

Most of the other connection methods are "workaround" ways of avoiding doing the "real thing." Ethernet is the standard for network connections. If you have a real use for it, one of the wireless systems might be useful - and your new machine may actually have an IR port you haven't found(?); but you'll eventually wish you had the 'net(?).

My first real question would be - why you want to "migrate" Win98SE settings to a new WinXP setup. I suspect that you've found the instructions somewhere in the XP or 98SE documentation that tells you you can do this; but I've never found it helpful. The "migrate" or "transfer" utility information I can recall studying when I last set up a new machine was intended for use only if you want to set up the same system on a new machine. You're setting up a new system, and don't want Win98SE stuff trashing the XP system.

Assuming that your new XP machine is up and running, any add-on software should be installed - new from your source disks - on XP. And then check for new XP drivers for each and every program. (You need to install because any registry entries in XP may want DWORD (32 bit) entries, and 98SE only has 16 bit entries to transfer there, among other reasons.)

Email and address books should be compacted and saved, to CD or floppy, and "imported" by the email program on the new machine. Cookies are plain text files and can be copied.

Your own work, documents and worksheets and such, can be burned to data CDs and just copied to the new machine. You can apparently burn a CD on either machine, and either machine can read a simple data CD made on the other. (i.e. you have Nero installed on both machines?).

Putting all the data files on a CD, for purposes of copying them to the new machine, will incidentally give you a complete backup that you can file away and smile about when you hear about someone else's loss of data.

I may be missing something; but I don't see any obvious reason for "migrating" anything instead of just copying what you want to put on the new machine.

John