i'm connected to the net yet when i open limewire the search option isn't available so i can't do anything at all. something had to of gone wrong durring the loading process or something. please tell me how to fix this!

check the box at Menu->View->Connections then look at the connections tab whether LimeWire is trying to connect to any hosts (you should see about 10 hosts with the status "connecting"). If LimeWire isn't connecting to the Gnutella network, you are probably behind a firewall or a router, that doesn't allow you to connect to gnutella without configuring it properly.

Missing search buttons/window etc. Are you using a recent release? This was a definite bug a few months ago, but was supposed to be fixed in later versions.

Maybe you could try uninstalling and then installing again.

LW 2.4 should be out in the next couple of days, so try d/l it and see if it helps solve your problem.

Good luck

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~Kath~
Always judge a person by the way they treat someone who can be of no possible use to them