Tried all the suggestions. Nothing helped. Saw Zap's September posting. Added the two ports and installed the suggested download. Voilá, indeed. BTW, enabling the 2 programs and adding the ports alone didn't do it. But with Event ID 4226 it runs flawlessly.

Not sure how one finds things in the forum, so will post the relevent info. Zap, if you're reading, grazie mille!

"1. I installed the "Event ID 4226" patch from http://www.lvllord.de/?url=tools --which did not help on its own, but I don't think its current installation is crucial to the solution. All I know is Limewire's connection quality is now "excellent" and files are uploading and downloading as before SP2.

2. The first time Limewire runs, the Windows Firewall should prompt to enable 2 programs: "javaw" and "<installation_path>\LimeWire.exe". Enable these 2 apps to pass the firewall when prompted.

3. Per Limewire's own instructions ( http://www.limewire.com/english/content/firewalls.shtml ) go to Start | Control Panel | Windows Firewall and "Add port..." 6346 twice with the default scope, once for TCP and once for UDP (the names you give these rules aren't important).

PS I've upgrade to Limewire 4.1.5 Beta."

~ Blacky