Limewire told me that I'm a "leaf node shielded by an ultrapeer" and that it's limiting my searches and slowing my downloads. Which it is. But I have no idea how that happened or how to fix it. Can anyone here help me?

If you click to show incoming searches, it will give that warning. That same message appears for most people. It doesn't for those who are using LW in Ultrapeer mode. The network decides who can be a UP, not the user.

Keep it disabled if it's slowing your downlds. It's not really a very important function (incoming searches.)

Ok, umm.. thanks. But there's still a little firewalled symbol in the bottom. I was having trouble like this with morpheus which is why I switched to limewire (and liked it better). Is there any way to scan my computer for firewalls, or am I just going crazy and imaginging things?

You have to configure your firewall so limewire can work. Don't run 2 firewalls at once, it just causes probs. See here for info on how to set up firewalls:
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=51357

If your router uses UPnP, read the info & make sure it's turned on in your router & also in LW (tools > options > advanced > firewall config. Tick 'use UPnP & apply)

Do the port test in the thread & see what it says.