Wow I got caught out. I posted a reply in Tips & Tricks & it wouldn't let me post. hmm so this is why! Naughty naughty!!! It helps if you follow the forum rules - they're posted at the top of every section! http://www.gnutellaforums.com/announ...?s=&forumid=29

I'll answer one of your questions. When you choose to dwnld a file, LW needs to accumulate enough resources for that file to begin dwnlding. For that reason it's best to choose a file that has multiple sources. But keep in mind that everybody has some form of limited upld bandwidth. Also, within LW they may filter out certain users by speed, connection type or no. of files they're sharing (be that 5, 50, or 500, etc.) & if a user's upld bandwidth is already taken up with other people dwnlding from them, then you'll get a busy or put in waiting list. Also connections vary from dial-up to T1 which are generally company owned. There are so many reasons why a person might not find it easy to connect to a particular source(s). Local net traffic near you or them can affect this also. People are also constantly going offline. So when you do a search, some time later those results may not be relevant any more for that reason (gone stale.) If your LW is well configured, more often than not, some time after you open LW & it settles down, some incomplete files will start to dwnld. Some days you need to 'baby-sit' LW by doing searches to find enough sources & resources for files to start dwnlding. See this link for some hints on effective search techniques.
You can press the Resume button for some files to start dwnlding. However, they will search every 5 mins or so & if they can't find sources will eventually give up. When you open LW all files will take it in turn to find any immediate sources. Separate searching can help this process.

The reason LW doesn't auto search frequently is b/c the gnutella network would simply over-flood itself & as a result would slow down to a crawl even for high bandwidth users. So the designers of LW have tried to be gnutella environment healthy & concientious by limiting auto searches (such as when you open LW & when you use the resume function) to a limited no. & no. of times.
I don't know if this will apply in your case but re: corrupted files, have a look at this (click on link.) As a piece of advice, add the words .exe, .jpg, & .wmv to your keyword filters (LW menu Tools-Options-Filters & Keyword.) You can add/delete these any time, but it will help to stop spam clogging up your search energy & results.