uPnP disabled but Limewire still working - why?

Hi

I was planning to enable manual port forwarding in Limewire and then setup that port for port forwarding manually in my router because that way I don't have to enable UPnP in the router (which I like, for security purposes).
But to my surprise... when I DISABLE uPnP on both my Netgear DG834GT router, in XP Pro (SSDP & Univ Plug and play services) and in the Limewire settings... Limewire still works fine! Why? Surely it should not even be able to connect now? I have no port forwarding setup for Limewire on the router.
I have ZoneAlarm firewall installed with Limewire has Trusted/Internet access but not Server access.

Why is my Limewire still connecting with full signal? There's several threads on here with people with connection problems, and then they're told to enable UPnP on the router, or if they disable it on the router they must manually enable port forwarding to get it to work etc. Yet I have everything disabled and my Limewire works anyway, it doesn't make sense.
I want to know why because I want to have control over my security and if Limewire completely bypasses every setting I have on the router and XP, then I'm worried..

Any thoughts or explanations will be appreciated. Thanks.

After disabling UPnP on LW, WinXP and your router, did you reboot your PC and router so that your changes your new settings replaced your old?

Without rebooting your old settings are still in memory and still working.

I rebooted everything. UPnP on Limewire, router and XP is definitely disabled, yet Limewire works as usual. I'm left confused.
(of course, I'm assuming Limewire can't work with UPnP and port forwarding disabled)

Globetrotter

You know, computers are suppose to be logical, rational and without any form of mystery whatsoever. Yet, as of today, I have a mystery of my own, namely why does a Vista PC suddenly work today when it would not work for the past (nearly) two weeks?


UK Bob