how do you turn off player in regular limewire?
 

anyone know how to turn off the player before the song ends?

Press the stop button. LW's media player has basic player controls at the bottom right of main search/dwnld window. If you're having problems with a particular song & can't stop it, then you could temporarily disable it I guess by going to Tools>Options>Player & untick option to use LW's media player & press the Apply button. If you'd prefer to use your default mp3 player then use the above technique to disable LW's player & then everytime you launch an mp3, your comp's main mp3 player will open & play it.

turning off limewire player
 

Ive tried using the control button stop at thebottom right of the download page in order to turn off a preview, only to have the download stop...I dont think my version of limewire allows me to turn off previews, perhaps the upgrade does

You don't have much understanding of the LW controls do you!?