I'd read the 'comport.txt' file in the Palm folder.. I'd also go into the Device Manager under system and examine your COM port configuration. You may be able to just delete one of the lower (serial) ports, and have it reinstall on reboot, letting the plug & pray reassign the port status, including your IR. Your BIOS has to be set to BIOS P&P instead of OS P&P if you want to apply changes you make in the BIOS...You might also examine the IR port setting to see if you can manually change it to a lower COM port, juggling the others, in which case you have to set the plug & play settings to be BIOS-dependent-it's probably on a different screen.

In WinXP, you can manually assign com ports. Make sure you're not dealing with a 'virtual infrared port'-they're harder to allocate. If all else fails, try to disable the serial port in the hardware manager on the notebook and see if the notebook assigns the IR a lower COM # in Win 98. I find it easier to just stay with the Win98 P&P OS settings in your BIOS unless you have no other choice. Hope that helps, good luck!