Hi bearsy,

Before you give up, just try these things

In LW go tools > options > advanced > firewall config. Now change LW's listening port to 64049 > apply > ok.

If that doesn't help, delete LW's preferences folder when LW's properly closed. See point 3 here & also point 2 if you've used older versions of LW in the past (there could be a folder in either location).
Fixes for LimeWire
This will kill all of your settings within options, you'll have to go back through afterwards & reset things. If you're not sure of your settings, go through LW's tools > options & write them all down, so that you can reset things later.

Last thing to try: Reinstall this Java version. Use the JRE offline installer & remove your current Java version before you install this one.
Archive: Download Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 Update 11

Yeah it worked. Thanks so much

obviously that previous file was causing some issues

Thanks again