This is probably the best place to start A technique for connecting with BearShare (top of page has link to downloading the BearShare 5.1 beta version which was equivalent to Pro, and the link at bottom of page for connection fixes you will also need.)

And you may also wish a blocklist to help prevent spam: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/open-d...tml#post369129

By the way, the first page of the following thread in posts #1 and #2 give better details about what happened with the original BearShare: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/open-d...sabotaged.html but for download links for BearShare, use the one in the 'A technique for connecting with BearShare' thread because that installed version works more smoothly. Hope that did not sound confusing.