Did I understand your question right ?
You wanted to know why you can't find the files from one PC on another PC .

Short explaination :
The Gnutella network is too big for the 2 PC's to find eachother .

Boring Explanation :

The network is decentrialized meaning >

A client connects to another one , thatone to the next , thisone to the next , ... you see were I'm going right ?

Now If you now that a normal client has about 5-10 connections the network becomes allot more complicated . (Imagine yourself a plate of spagethi)

We go back to our first simple chain of clients :
your PC and your girlfrends PC have 11 other PC's (clients) sitting between them .

But on every search you make in a client (Your Gnutella program : LimeWire) there is a max hops variable .
That defines how many clients a search can go trough before the next one thinks it's too old and deletes it .
Suppose this is 10 then our 2 PC's can't find eachother since there are 11 other clients between them .

Let's suppose our PC's would be close enougf to eachother and they should find eachother , Should ...

There is one factor I left out : overload

Imagen 7 clients between our PC's , they should find eachother because the maximum hops is still 10
But there is one smart-*** outthere in that chain (one of those 7 other clients) that has a crummy connection and only a 56K modem (phoneline) but he put's it's number of connections way too high (20 or so) .

His client sees he can't transmit or receive all that data in time and has only one way out : delete some
Now if that happens to be your search it deletes , then the 2 PC's at the end don't receive eachothers messages and can't find eachother .

This is a very simple approuch since there are still some more factors :

Once the search gets whereever it's going , the result to that search needs to come back the same way the search came .
Thus it faces the same dangers as the search did in the first place .

With LimeWire we now have clients and Ultrapeers making things more complicated :
-client has only 1 connection anymore (to an Ultrapeer)
-Ultrapeer manages over 50 connections to other clients and a few(4-5) other Ultrapeers .

That max hop number is in reality allot higher .

There are allot of idiots on 56K outhere that don't know how this thing works (by for example putting up +20 connections) making it suck for everybody .

Now we have a very big plate of spagethi , don't we ?

How do we fix this ?

We somehow force the other guys out and make sure that our 2 clients can "see" eachother .

First let me explain an IP :

An IP is the real addres of your PC on the net , every PC has one (or more)
Compare it with everybody's house having a diferent addres , no 2 are the like .
It's basicly a big long number with a few dots in it like this : 63.211.153.124
Hey if you enter this one in your browser with http:// in front of it you end up in these forums , so you see everything has an IP .
You can find your IP with a tool you download from tucows.com , zdnet.com or webattack.com .
Or with a difficult DOS commando for the Win PC that I can't remember .

In LimeWire you have a screen with connections , right ?
1) Well findout the IP addres of the other PC and type it in here and push "add" .
2) At the same time the other PC must be willing to accept connections coming from others .
On the other PC delete the List with IP's and the autoconnecthosts and kill all current connections .

Catch :

2 has to happen a few seconds before 1 .
How fast can you run between the 2 PC's ?

Now i could have told you this at the beginning but I want you to actually understand what your are doing

Yeah , but I forgot to enter my username ...

Now I can't correct my typos ...

and if they were a registered member, they just may be someday.
(because we might actually know their name!)

i have a 56k modem and i am only allowed 2 or 3 connections. where do you get that we have 20 connections? where do you get off calling us idiots? are we really making it suck for everybody? i don't think so. i think it is your mentality that sucks.

If they mark their connection type as T1 or T3 they can easily open up to many connections .

Sorry to insult you , but yes there are allot of idiots outthere that don't how LW works .

They push the buttons until LW doesn't work anymore and then they come bitching on the forums .

And if you ask them what they did then there it comes .
But that's not the bad part :
Next ask them if they know what those options in the config do after they have changed them .

40% of answers > plain "No"
40% of answers > "No" with an excuse
20% of answers > Yes , those are the people that have bothered to RTFM first before they posted .

And from analyzing your post I can easily figure that you didn't know how to change that limit , so to me , yes you are one of those idiots .

You don't need to be smart for such things , you just need to RTFM .
Wich you clearly have not ...

<hr>

BTW incase you didn't know : RTFM stands for Read The F*cking Manual

Sorry for the rest of you guys , but I can't stand such persons .
Now if someone asks a question like TuLSaViPeR did then I don't mind typing allot to explain it to him , because the manual and the FAQ's are indeed a little "blurry" on this .

But if you come here asking stupid questions wich are clearly explained in the manual , don't be surprised if someones calls you an idiot .
Because it clearly says at the door : Read FAQ and manual first .

Like i said , sorry for the people for who this doesn't apply .
I didn't mean to start a flame war .

<B>First of all</B> I <B>HAVE</B> read the FAQ. If you read any other posts besides your own, you'd know that I have referred many others to the FAQ for help. I have even printed it out for <B>myself</B> to refer to so I can become a better user. I wasn't aware that I could change my connection quantity just by altering the connection configuration, but does that <B>really</B> make me an idiot? I guess if you say so, you just might be the authority on it...I am, however, aware that whenever I try to up my connections, it tells me I cannot. That is fine with me. I get plenty of connections to get the job done. If you say I am clogging-up the network, I can only say that I am using it the only way I know how at this point. I never professed to be an expert, and I only browse this forum to give and receive help---not bash other users and resort to name-calling to blow-off steam. I go to other forums for that!

why bother? you basically typed it all out for that tulsaviper person. i mean, the last i checked, this WAS an open discussion thread...boy, i'd sure like to see you when you <B>DO</B> want to start a "flame".

Can't We All Just Get Along!

sorry, i guess some of us are too "idiotic".

I didn't say all 56K users screw things up , just allot of them do (by accident or not).
Besides with Ultrapeer mode now these kinds of discussions should not arrise anymore .

<hr>
End of discussion .

you <B>ARE</B> the authority.