same problem here and ima noob aswell sry guys. i have umm bearshare 5.2.5. been using it for years. also all of a sudden stopped connecting to the network. i tried the old beta that aaronwalkhouse recommends and it worked fine but i really wish to fix my 5.2.5 version. i believe the problem is that when i try to unzip the fresh nodes i get this message.

im using windows vista.

!\Desktop\connect.zip: Cannot create connect(1).txt
! Access is denied.
!\Desktop\connect.zip: Cannot create gwebcache(1).dat
! Access is denied.
!\Desktop\connect.zip: Cannot create What you do with this stuff..txt
! Access is denied.