Andy,

Can you run a dxdiag.exe report and paste it into a new reply? If we can see exactly what hardware and software you're running it might help people find a fix or a clue to what is causing your particular malfuntion.

Alternative P2P software: Shareaza, RShare, Freenet, I2P, GNUnet and Entropy. There are others. Best thing to do is take a look at all of them and see for yourself which one will meet your need the best.