The other free Virtual PC apps are VMWare (which, I believe, Virtual PC is based on), VirtualBox and QEMU. The latter takes some fiddling and may actually be a step backwards if you're not using KQEMU to accelerate it.
If you seek to run DOS games, then DOSBox is probably your best bet there. For Windows 98, try the above solutions (but as a warning, VMWare and VirtualBox tend to elbow one another).
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We are one, we are strong... the more you hold us down, the more we press on - Creed, "What If"
AS is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
I'm the same as I was when I was six years old - Modest Mouse