FIXED!
On a whim, since I was just going to delete LW, I decided to try SOME of the recommendations.
Now, seriously, many of you people berate us newbs because we "aren't doing this or that" and "aren't using the search function"...take a step out of your mighty box and approach it from our position...there are hundreds of thousands of instructions, and MOST are prefaced with "you aren't telling us any information".
ANYWAY, THIS worked for me:
Shut down LW, went (through My computer) to find the ".limewire" folder, and JUST DELETED THE MOTHER F-ER. When I tried to open LW again, it ran me through the preference questions and asked me to designate my save/share folders.
I am on a laptop with XP, have no idea what Java is, no clue what modem, ports or routers I am using...all I know is THIS WORKED. Thanks to whoever first posted that tip without calling us all retards...seems to me if this many people have the same problem it's time to fix the problem and not the user.
Now...back to my dirty searches... ;^)