When LW refuses to launch, the advice goven above is of no use because:

1) you can't set any prefs for LW if you can't get the app to stay open

2) your suggestions about the Proxies tab in the Network control panel are interesting. Somehow the word "limewire.com" was inserted in the panel in mine which is beneath the words: "Bypass proxy settings for these Hosts & Domains" however leaving it and removing it had no effect. Passive mode or not, the results are the same: the LW application simply will not launch and stay open no matter what.

If the people who build and sell this application know what they are doing, they should publish a comprehensive configuration page in the FAQ or support page and not make people go hunting through al these forums looking for the well-intentioned ideas of volunteer users. As application developers for the OS-X platform, they ought to be able to read the kernel panic error messages that users send to them and diagnose what is causing it.

Otherwise, everybody just wastes their time doing the hokey pokey.