I like Limewire very much. It's very efficient in the initial connection, downloading items and maintaining the library.

However, I am experiencing intermediate disconnections from the internet. About every 5 minutes, Limewire will disconnect and I'll be taken to my opening page (I have WinXP with SP2). At that time I lose any download that is running. Any suggestions?

Disable ultrapeer capabilities (tools > options > speed). Disable iTunes sharing.
Don't download too many files at once, keep it to just a couple, & don't resume many incomplete files at once.
Reduce your upload & download bandwidth a little bit.

Update your Java by downloading the JRE offline installer here (remove your old Java version before installing the new one).
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

Try these things & see if they help. If not, post back

Thanks for the quick response, birdy! I'll do all of these things and get back to you. Chao - rigid06