How can I view the images I download from limewire or the pictures?

By using an appropriate viewer.

LimeWire has built in support for playing MP3 files (I don't use it and I've heard that it isn't very good). For everything else you'll need to use third party programs.

What sort of things are you trying to view?

WinAmp is a good audio player (will play most audio types). Windows Media Player should be built in and will play most movies but may need to have additional codecs (there are a very large number of different movie types even within the standard extensions of avi and mpg). I've found the Nimo Codec bundle to be extremely useful. Search for 'Nimo'.

JPG and GIF files can be viewed in internet explorer, although there are much better programs around for the purpose.

Mark

It doesn't work for me!

Right click on your start button, then click on 'explore'. Then under the 'tools' menu, click on 'folder options'. It may be listed under the 'view' menu on your computer. Once you find 'folder options' click on 'file types'. scroll until you find 'GIF' and click on it once. Look at the bottom of the window to see what opens the GIF file. If you want to change it to open in internet explorer, click on 'change'. Then you may have to browse to direct it to the IEXPLORE.EXE file. Mine is located here- C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE. If you're using Windows ME, a window pops up offering you several choices of programs to associate your GIF files to. The choices include 'Image Preview' and Internet Explorer. Either will work, or any other image editing program you may have, like photoshop.
Once you've changed the association, double clicking on a GIF file should open it in the program that you chose (internet explorer or Image Preview etc.). Do the same for your JPEG (JPG) file association. Good Luck.