Starting a process on WIN98 is VERY slow. (On NT much faster the second time). If you really want to use WIN98, modify CGIHTTPServer.py in such a way, that branch
#Other O.S. -- execute script in this process is executed. This way CGIHTTPServer is as fast as it gets. At least not slower then ISAPI in JScript or VBScript and faster then Apache cgi. If you need the modified module, I can send you one for 2.3. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list