I've been using LW for years since the early days & always on WIN2K SP4 but now, since about 3 months the program starts, does all the normal things, logs on to the network correctly etc..etc but then as soon as I try and enter search terms or adjust a setting in 'Options' it just vanishes of the Desktop. It disappears into the system tray but as soon as I put my mouse over that systray item it disappears too.

Clearly the whole LW service has shut down mysteriously. It does this EVERYTIME - Without fail. Nothing simple fixes it.
I wonder if it might be a fault with my JAVA runtime that actually seems to be OK or if it might be some Windows security Update of which I have just a handful installed (uninstallable).
My Admin tools » EVENT VIEWER has absolutely NO error messages in it whatsoever. All appears to be normal.

Or could it be a WINDOWS service malfunctioning for instance: RPC - "Remote Procedure Call". It seems to be having a problem. It's not fully listed in the Admin tools » Services. I cannot start or stop it and a lot of other services are dependent on it so says the 'Services' window.
My fully functional anti-virus update for instance is dependent on RPC as is windows installer and Telnet. A Program alternative to LIMEWIRE I just tried called 'Shareaza' is shutting down at installation phase, which could be a pointer to this service being at fault.

Anyways, hope somebody has a clue because I certainly haven't.