when i try to download the status just gets stuck on connecting... LW used to work fine before i didnt even have to port forward, but now my downloads just get stuck on "connecting...." even if i port forward or not. if i share more files will my downloads be faster? i have win xp sp2, cable mode, and a linksys router please help.

This behaviour of LW could have several reasons.
For instance, a corruption of the preference folder, which could be dealt with by simply deleting it as described in Point #2 & 3 in Fixes for Limewire:
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=36420

Also a possible a Java issue, which could be solved by upgrading the present Java installation to the newest version. To do so, you should uninstall all previous versions, reboot, download the newest version using the JRE offline installer from here:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp
and install it and reboot again.

In case this problem occures with files supposely offered by many hosts (20 up to hundreds) then this problem is not to be solved since those files are usually faked ones hosted by people disliking P2P file sharing.
Using the Bitzi function can help minimize to risk of trying to download such faked files:
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showthread.php?t=37676

Last but not least, it is also possible that your ISP has started to shape (throttle) the bandwidth you're using. A test download of a magnet link from here could give you some indications whether this is the case:
http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml

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i have J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 6, should i download the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 5.0 Update 8 you showed me in the link or another one because there are many links.

The newest version is 1.5.0_08. So, yes, download the update 8.

__________________

"Never Argue With An Idiot. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience"