Transparency would work with XP and 2000 only, not 98. There are many tools out there thru which you can change the transparency settings of the Taskbar. Here are a few:
*www.snapfiles.com/get/transbar.html
*www.vbcity.com/pubs/article.asp?alias=trans_taskbar
And here's a really cool software:
*www.tweakxp.com/article14239.aspx