what are the advantages to switching to windows 2000?

For home use there aren't any real advantages. There are many features available in Win2000 that are not available in Win98 but you probably wouldn't use them anyway. Win2000 can use the NTFS file system, which is more stable and secure than FAT32 but is a little slower. The single biggest advantage for a home user with a large harddrive is less wasted disk space from slack. With FAT32 the cluster size increases with the disk size. NTFS uses 4kb cluster size by default. File size isn't limited to 4GB as it is in Win98. Here is a chart of cluster sizes. Cluster sizes for FAT32 are as follows: 512MB to 8,191MB = 4KB 8,192MB to 16,383MB = 8KB 16,384MB to 32,767MB = 16KB Larger than 32,768MB = 32KB NTFS - All partitions on a PC = 4KB default

So it is basically just the hard drive and file system that is changed. I only have a 4 gb hard drive so it wont matter to me much. Are there any advantages as far as driver compatability or gaming compatability?

You may have issues with gaming hardware drivers. Win2000 also will take up more space. You are better off staying with Win98. I just noticed the amount of RAM you have. That is kind of lean for Win2000.

I find that 2000 is extremely stable.

What about advantages with networking?

If you mean home networking I would have to say that most folks have some difficulty with the concept of shares that you need to create when using Win2000. In the home environment the extra layers of security are for the most part unneeded. If you have a specific need why don't you state it and then we can address the difference in that context. I guess to sum it up Win2000 is a more secure, robust OS that is more difficult to learn and IMO and more difficult to repair when broken. The second issue has been corrected, for the most part with WinXP. If you are thinking of moving to the NT kernal you should consider WinXP. Win2000 was never intended to be an OS for the home user. It was designed with business in mind. The proof of this statememt lies in the fact that upon first release many features home users and gamers were already enjoying were not available in Win2000. Drivers for gaming gear come to mind. This has changed somewhat over the years but WinXP is still a more mature OS.