What's your connection status (how many green bars)?
Do you see the firewall icon (brick wall in front of the blue globe)?
Who is your ISP?

Within LW go tools > options > searching > basic. Make sure that the max number of searches isn't set at zero. If it is, change it to 5.
Try deleting LW's preferences folder (when LW's closed). Points 2 & 3 in the thread below will explain how. Deleting this folder will kill all of your settings within tools > options. You'll have to go back through & reset things afterwards:wink:
Fixes for LimeWire

Try to download a file from here & see what happens
http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml

*It's better to have a firewall properly configured than no active firewall! Just use 1 software firewall...multiple firewalls can conflict with each other & cause problems
Firewall setup