First, I deleted all instances of Limewire. After I thought I had eliminated everything, I did a search (Windows XP) with LimeWire. Found four more files. Deleted them...a complete clean delete. Next, I went and updated to Java 6. Then, I did a complete reinstall of Limewire (4.18.2) and it worked.

Before I had absolutely NO firewalls set and it still showed a block in front of the earth (bottom left of screen) with one bar. Now, it works.

Hopefully it will be this simple for everyone else. Kind of a pain in the *** to go through this goat rope...but maybe it will work for you too.

Good luck.