i need to know exactly how this worked. i found a thread with peerless and lordoftherings (2 super smart guys) who posted some advice on how to get connected. i did copy that bearshare cache.zip into the db folder and also opened up windows firewall and added the bearshare test exception and the TCP/UDP ports in there, but my windows firewall was turned off anyway, I use zone alarm. and i didnt touch zone alarm at all for this, i just made those changes in windows firewall. i also dropped some type of zip file that aaronwalkhouse quoted in the 'bearshare is sabotaged' topic. what i would like is maybe some info so that i can make my own troubleshooting guide for just my setup, so if this happens again years down the road, i can just open a word doc and follow the instructions, and get this working again. thanks to all who read and help out.