Hah, that's a good one. I haven't even touched mine.
Well, I'll do my best anyway...
First suggestion is to turn it off completely. The reason being that Macs don't have nearly as many security problems (not that I'm complaining, mind you) as a PC (especially on Windoze XP, from what I hear). No adware/spyware for us. No trojans. And we only have a minimal amount of virii compared to the amount that is available for PCs.

If, however, you do not like my first suggestion and prefer to retain a "better be safe than sorry attitude", then open the System Preferences application.
In there, click the Sharing icon and then the Firewall tab. (I bet that you've already figured those steps out since your firewall is already active, huh?).
Select "New...". In the "Port Name" drop-down box, select "Gnutella/Limewire", then click OK.
Restart LW to see if this had any effect.
(For reference, the port LW uses by default is 6346)

__________________
iMac G4 OSX 10.3.9
RAM 256MB
LW 4.10.5 Basic
ADSL anything from 3 to 8Mbps/around 1024kbps

"Raise your can of Beer on high
And seal your fate forever
Our best years have passed us by
The Golden Age Of Leather"
-Blue Öyster Cult-

LW as adware? I'd heard that some weird adware/spyware scanner had an old database and recognized LW as spyware/adware (I think it's spyware) because KazaA is/was/whatever spyware and it matched KazaA's profile to LW's or something.
Get Spybot (the most popular and possibly the best) and probably Adaware (heard that this one was not all that bad either).
You might also want to set up a firewall. Properly configured if you please.
As per the installation problem, how exactly did you uninstall LW? And what kind of platform are you working on?

__________________
iMac G4 OSX 10.3.9
RAM 256MB
LW 4.10.5 Basic
ADSL anything from 3 to 8Mbps/around 1024kbps

"Raise your can of Beer on high
And seal your fate forever
Our best years have passed us by
The Golden Age Of Leather"
-Blue Öyster Cult-

Maybe I should've stated that I am not a very computer literate...sorry. But I have Windows XP and I have no idea where to go from here. I uninstalled LimeWire by going to add/remove programs. If you can help me step by step that would be really great!

Thanks!

Uninistall it again and find the Preferences folder and delete that (since I don't know were it is in Windoze, I suggest that after the uninstall, you run a Search in your comp for the keyword "Limewire" and delete all that comes up. However, it may not be the best thing to do, since, again, I don't really know XP).
Before reinstalling LW, go to www.java.com and dld the latest Java. If you already have it, then it might be necessary to uninstall that too and redld and install it: it might have somehow gotten corrupt. (people have mentioned that actually going to an older version of Java has had better results so they wound up with two versions of the soft, but try just the newest version first).
Now, redld LW and install it again. See if it works.

__________________
iMac G4 OSX 10.3.9
RAM 256MB
LW 4.10.5 Basic
ADSL anything from 3 to 8Mbps/around 1024kbps

"Raise your can of Beer on high
And seal your fate forever
Our best years have passed us by
The Golden Age Of Leather"
-Blue Öyster Cult-

hello.. can i start by saying a HUGE thankyou to you and all the moderators who are working so hard to help us with all our limewire problems..i for one really appreciate it.. now.. for the ' i have no idea what im doing' moment.. i am very keen to try your latest idea for fixing problems with connecting to limewire.. but im a bit of a computer glitz.. so WHEN you say... delete my entire limewire preference directory.. ( im an xp pro user).. i have NO idea what that means.. i know it isnt your job to tutor me on computer know how.. but if you could perhaps think of me as a blonde . ( yes i am.. so its i can use it as a cliche ) and explain HOW i do that.. i will be forever grateful and name my first child after you.. ok.. it will be my fifth.. but who is counting..

ok... ignore my last post.. i managed to work it out.. ( actually i read a bit further on and copied what somebody else said to delete preferences.. but hey i got there!!).. ok.. so ive done that... i restarted lw..and immediately i got an 'excellent' connection... so there i was... making sure i could spell "M.O.D.E.R.A.T.O.R.' correctly so i could name my next child as per promised.. when suddenly im back to 'connecting.. so turned off LW.. ( im sure there is a more technical term than that.. but you know what i mean).. restarted it.. and while its trying to connect..it tells me... it cant connect.. perhaps im not connected to the internet.. ( i am ) or my firewall is stopping it... i have already added LW to my firewall thingy as per previously instructed.. so i dont think its that..( you lot must be EXHAUSTED by having to answer the same questions over and over and over again..) but here i wait with baited breath.. and complete confidence.. for your NEXT instruction on how to get LW connecting for me... from MAZ.. in Australia..

Just to make sure it's nothing to do with firewalls (& it probably isn't) the best way to check is: When LW is open, click Tools-Options & go to Bug report & click for an example. In the window that appears scroll down to the part that says: "Recieved incoming this session". If it says 'true' then LW has no problem with firewalls.

Hmm, I have kind of a small suspicion.
Try redeleting the preferences.

__________________
iMac G4 OSX 10.3.9
RAM 256MB
LW 4.10.5 Basic
ADSL anything from 3 to 8Mbps/around 1024kbps

"Raise your can of Beer on high
And seal your fate forever
Our best years have passed us by
The Golden Age Of Leather"
-Blue Öyster Cult-

Thank you all for your help.. i now have limewire up and running at its wonderful best.. and its all thanks to YOU!!!!.. for those of you getting agro with these guys ( and girls ?) in the words of Peerless... patience is a virtue!!.. they are bending over backwards to come up with workable solutions to the problems being put here.. remember..ALL the different perspectives they have to view it from.. with the little information normally given.. and yet they STILL come up with winning formulas...im very pleased and impressed with the prompt and thoughtful help ive been given here.. and think you should all give yourselves pats on your backs..you ROCK!!

ok so i'm going to try to delete my preferences. could someone please guide me through how to do that. when i see "/Users/your_username/Library/Preferences/LimeWire", i have no clue what thats supposed to mean. i have OSX if that helps at all.