[Fyron]

IE7 is a more secure platform than IE6. You can just block iexplore.exe from accessing the net with a software firewall if you want. That way, it won't actually be vulnerable to much.

.NET is good for the same things any language runtime is good for, running applications written for it. As Microsoft continues to push it as the default application environment in Vista going forward, it will become a more ubiquitous platform, akin to Java.

If you are lamenting the lack of 640x480, XP does not support that resolution for the desktop (which is for the best). Anything else would be the fault of the video driver writers, not XP. XP is capable of supporting a greater range of resolution than 98. As with any OS, it lists what the drivers tell it to. There are third party tools available that will let you specify nearly any arbitrary resolution, provided your video card and monitor are capable of rendering and displaying them. I don't recall their names off-hand, but surely google can unearth them.

How is the external modem connected? If its USB, I would suspect poor driver support and/or a faulty device. USB specifies hot plug swap-ability. If its connected to a MIDI port or something, I have no idea. Does it do it every time you try to run it, or was it only after the first use?