[QUOTE=Lord of the Rings]LW will only use Java 1.6 if no other versions of Java are on your system. So you'd need to remove the earlier versions.

Yeah I did that but it still gave me a warning that it is only for WinXP and above, but I tried it anyway and got exception errors so I uninstalled it and put 1.5 back in.

You've got me stumped. I'm not sure what the problem is.

When you deleted the preferences folder, did you look for the hidden folder called Application Data? It can only be found if you turn on 'show hidden files & folders' before searching for limewire.

For windows 98 the earlier versions of LW the LW prefs were found here: Your .limewire folder is in "C:\My Documents"
I'm not sure about now. The new prefs folder is normally found in application data folder.
It is in Windows folder right at the top.(because of the decimal point first)
I did a search of the hard drive for anything that has the limewire word and there are no other places in Win98.
I am in the process of installing everything on the other computer to see what happens.If it works, it will eliminate lots of things.
I'll keep you posted.
Thanks for the help!

Well here is what I found:
Installed LW and JAVA on my wifes computer (win98 SE, only 200mhz. processor, you know the rest- older machine but works for her)
She only had the Microsofts Java so I installed Sun version 1.4 to start to see what happens, and the LW free version. As I expected, everything worked fine first try. Downloaded from LW with no problem. So my problem is obviously some setting that went bad in my computer somewhere. But what and where I don't know. All I know is it was working last weekend when I used LW last. So I reverted my Registry back to last weeks startup (upon start up, get into command prompt only, and type "scanreg /restore". You will get a list of saved registry files (I set mine to save 20 restarts worth using TweakUI) and choose the one you want windows to use. And I rebooted and everything works fine (except I had to reinstall Java again because the old registry didn't have the new changed Java installation in it). Bottom line, I don't know what setting or whatever was changed on my system but it works now. Thanks for all the Help L.O.T.R.