The naming isn't the issue here ... I suspect it's the protocols. I set up a Windows 98SE system (virtualized) and attempted to access a Windows 7 system. The '7 system has password protected sharing disabled; "everyone" allowed access on the shares; etc. -- it works perfectly with access from any OS from Win2K forward (2K, XP, Vista, etc.). But the '98 system cannot access the '7 system. The W7 system, however, can access the '98 system perfectly.
I didn't spend a ton of time trying to resolve this, but did "play" for an hour or so with a variety of network configurations (firewalls; security settings; etc.). There is likely an installable network component that could be added to the '98 system to enable this access, but I don't know what that might be. As you noted, you may find some help in the networking zone -- but I didn't find any historical posts on this in that zone either.
As I noted earlier, I've found the simplest approach for multiple systems that need to share data/printers/etc. is to use either a NAS for the files and network printers (as opposed to locally attached printers that are shared -- you can do this for printers withotu ethernet interfaces using a print server); or to use an XP system as the central repository for the files and printers, since XP shares well in both "directions" (i.e. with both 9x OS's and with the later Vista and '7 systems).
