Woogieman: Time to say HUH!
"If I use NTFS, then the 98 systems can't communicate with the XP boxes."
Hard to believe this. Here at my jolygolly place this is a problem never heard of. I guess you had some bad config in your LAN. (If xp can read the partition xp can also f eks send a file from it thruu the NIC... regardless cdfs, fat12/16/32 or ntfs)
Security - this is a matter of where your system is I guess, physically. At home it does't matter, in most cases.
Technically - All advantages at ntfs.
daMANwithANSWERZ: No, right, you didnīt ask. I did the asking...
And now it is clear to me too. Again.
Cheers all !