You have a firewall blocking you are you using any firewall besides the XP firewall. If not are you going through a router allot of routers have firewall,s in them. Your modem may also have a firewall. Your ISP may have started blocking P2P apps also, but from what you say about using system restore I doubt it. But from what you say about BearShare and LimeWire both being blocked there is a chance that is the problem. But it most likely another firewall somewhere.

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A little common sense goes a long way

Later Grandpa