pdesk and windows 98

Maybe like some other poor souls my old laptop runs Windows 98 and I
love Progect so wanted Pdesk too. But the binary download wouldn't run
on Win 98 :-(  I tried emailing this list but no-one maybe saw the
post. Anyway, I've had some partial success so thought someone else
might find this useful and someone clever might be able to suggest a
better approach plus fill in the final bit I haven't managed so far
(compiling the python to an execuatable with py2exe - just now I'm
running pdesk from source...). Anyway, I didn't have a clue what I was
doing so the following is maybe crazy, but kind of seems to work.

To get pdesk kind of but not entirely working on Windows 98, I
somewhat haphazardly did the following:

1. I had to download the beta source (unzip and then untar it). I got
it from:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pdesk/Pdesk_beta7_src.tgz?modtime=1090368000&big_mirror=0
2. I installed the older Python version 2.3.5 (from
http://www.fastmirrors.org/python/pub/www.python.org/2.3.5/ ). Newer
versions of Python didn't want to compile the source...
3. I thus needed to install the corresponding older wxPython version
wxPythonWIN32-2.4.2.4-Py23.exe to go with the above version of Python
(from:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wxpython/wxPython2.6-win32-ansi-2.6.3.3-py23.exe
)
4. I had to add the following line to my C:\autoexec.bat file and then
restart my system (so that it can find the python program in its
PATH): set path=%path%;C:\python23
5. After unzipping and untarring the source, I used Windows Explorer
to enter the created source directory (src).
6. Then I opened a command window (Start Button > Run > command)
intending to try running Pdesk from these source files(make sure you
cd to the src directory where the untarred source files are).
7. So, to do that,  I entered: 

     python  pdesk.pyw

but that came back with errors I didn't understand. So, in the src
folder I opened the text file "pdesk.log" and noticed the error
message: File "DrawSettings.py", line 30, in ?
    from pix import img
ImportError: cannot import name img

8. I hadn't a clue... but decided to move the file pix.py from the
subfolder src\pix up one level to src
    Then I tried again with: python   pdesk.pyw

That went a bit further, said last session didn't end properly - I
clicked OKAY and then it came with new error messages. I looked in
pdesk.log again and found error message:

File "D:\install\pdesk\src\PluginManager.py", line 30, in ?
    from plugins.PDeskPlugin import *
ImportError: No module named plugins.PDeskPlugin

Anyway, I then moved the file PDeskPlugin.py from the subfolder
src\plugins up one level to src  and tried again with:
9. python  pdesk.pyw

but that didn't work (same error message as in 8. above):

  File "D:\install\pdesk\src\PluginManager.py", line 30, in ?
    from plugins.PDeskPlugin import *
ImportError: No module named plugins.PDeskPlugin

10. So this time I opened up txt file PluginManager.py and commented
out line 30 by putting a hash in front the offending line: from
plugins.PDeskPlugin import *  (i.e. it is now: #from
plugins.PDeskPlugin import * ), and I tried again with:

python pdesk.pyw

Yeah..!!! Pdesk started up!!!!!

Okay, so I have no idea how important the loss of plugins.PDeskPlugin
import is (probably a lot...:-( ), and I'm sure there is a quick fix
for all of the above - I just don't know it... but I'd be glad if
someone would tell me the correct procedure!

10. Anyway, I wanted an executable version of pdesk now, so I
downloaded py2exe version py2exe-0.6.5.win32-py2.3.exe from:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/py2exe/py2exe-0.6.5.win32-py2.3.exe?modtime=1142828339&big_mirror=0

and ran it to install it on my windows 98 system.

11. Now, from the pdesk src folder (still in the command window shell)
I entered: python setup.py install 
However, that ended with the error message: 
error: can't copy 'w9xpopen.exe': doesn't exist or not a regular file

And that is where I am currently stuck. Any help appreciated... :-)

(I guess I'm looking for w98popen.exe - I'm going to Google that and
see if I can find any clues...)

William