thanks for the quick reply!

i think i still have the 'old' limewire in my system, or somewhere. i know i've already uninstalled it. i even used the regedit app of winxp just to troubleshoot my problem.
here's the error message by java:

"one or more necessary files appear to be invalid.this is generally caused by a corrupted installation.please try downloading and installing limewire again...(blah,blah,blah)"

i've done this but the problem is still here.