Just as well you did not try the earlier versions of LW 5. LW 5.0 was a bare-bones program with hardly anything in it. Gradually with each version LW have re-added tools & options & in more recent times added new tools. Still they have not added all things from LW 4. The reason they redesigned the program was the code was too messy with things added on top of others, they say the interface was also becoming crowded & not much room to add things. So they started the code from scratch with better design coding, added tools one by one back in. The new interface, yes many people have complained about getting used to it & the loss of tools. Last year there were a lot of flack complaint posts about the negatives aspects of LW 5.

What LW 5 offers now: Being able to see both upload & download windows at same time. Having download window visible at all times (excluding the introduction window when you open the program.) They added size-filter for search results. They improved the connection technology where it actually seeks genuine new peers to connect with. LW now opens up much faster and connects much faster than LW 4 or the earlier versions of LW 5. LW 5 uses less computer resources than LW 4. There's more options they added but cannot think of them presently, can see changes here: http://wiki.limewire.org/index.php?title=Changelog

For me personally? I use LW 4.16 in one account & LW 5 on another account on same computer. So I get best of both worlds. LW 5 & LW 4.18 will not download from users with versions older than LW 4.14 unless I'm mistaken, whereas LW 4.16 does.

Be wary about cancelling files with LW 5. When you do this, it not only removes the download but deletes the incomplete file. LW 4 on other hand only removed the listing from the download window.

LW 5 might be slow for you to get accustom to, however here's some guidelines for using LW 5: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/gettin...ire-4-5-a.html