BleepingComputer.com: What is limewire?

Hello,

My first time here. I was trying to help my 12 year old daughter set up her new ipod when my teenage son told me not to download "his" music onto her ipod. Apparently clever teenage son has installed something called "limewire" and has been obtaining music files for free because "nobody pays for music anymore".

I am not a sophisticated computer user but all sorts of red flags are going off. From the bit I've managed to read about it, it isn't illegal per se but you can do illegal things with it (like share copyrighted music?) I've also read it can come with malware.

So - should I just delete limewire and the files he's gotten? Is it as simple as doing an 'uninstall' to get rid of it?

And a related question - is all the music that one obtains legally for your ipod something you are supposed to buy? Or are there sites were you can get music free legally? If you take music out of the library can you download it onto your computer for personal use? (I know you can do this with copyrighted knitting patterns for example)

Teenagers - sigh.

thanks,
fpgill

If you want to be legal try iTUNES for the iPOD which is subscription based. There is also Rhapsody. it is a 14 day trial at first.

As for Limewire. It is an application that uses Peer to Peer ( or P2P) file transferring. That means people upload their files for others to download. Peer to peer DOES have legitimate uses. But yes, a lot of it is sharing copyrighted such as music and movies or books.

If you uninstall the Limewire application it likely will take all the files your son has downloaded with it. I guess that is Dad's call here is a guide that can help http://www.pcauthorities.com/pc-maintenanc...re-from-your-pc

There are many sites that you can use legally to download music, as long as they are the proper file associations, like mp3 for instance. You CAN do what they call "rip" or upload to your computer, a music CD you bought and put the files on your mp3 player legally.

Malware is easy to catch using P2P. Evil ne'er-do-wells upload malicious virii or spyware for the express pupose of gaining personal info on your computer or just to mess things up.

Heres a little info on it:

http://communication.howstuffworks.com/limewire4.htm

Quote

OK. So I want to uninstall Limewire and get rid of all the illegal music. And all the instructions I find say to :

"Go to the Start menu, then choose the Control Panel option. Click Add or Remove Programs. Once the installed programs list appears, look through the programs and choose Limewire and then click on the Change/Remove option to start the removal process"

Simple enough. Except, when I click on the 'add/remove programs' buttons - Limewire isn't in the list of programs shown.

Yet - when I physically open C:\Program Files and look at the list of folders in it - there is a Limewire folder. In it are:
Limewire.exe (492kb)
Limewire.pack (22, 965 kb)
unpack200.exe (124kb)
msvcr71.dll (340kb)
LImewire.jar.tmp (55,106 kb)

and a folder called lib which contains:
systemutilities.dll (88kb)
jdic.dll (108kb)
Unpackedjars.7z (18,107kb)
Limewire.jar (55,106lb)
jacob-1.14.3-x86.dll (100kb)

And for some reason, in my son's regular document folder on the desktop is a file Limewire 5.3.9 shortcut (2kb)

I hope I'm not going into too much detail, but I'm not a sophisticated computer user. Why doesn't Limewire show up when I click on 'add/remove programs'? Is it HIDING? How do I get rid of it and the illegal music files (which I'm not really sure where they are, unless they are in the ITunes library)

thanks!
fpgill

Limewire probably isn't hiding inasmuch as it's not attempting to remain unseen; it's not a malicious or sneaky program. It's probably just a matter of a hiccup somewhere or a lazy programmer not adding it to the list of installed programs.

You should be able to simply delete the install folder to deny your son the ability to use the program. Then make sure that your son does not have Administrator privileges so as to prevent him from re-installing it. (Note that even without this ability, if he's clever, he may still be able to run a special "portable" version of this program.)

As for the music already downloaded, even if you uninstalled Limewire from the Add/Remove Programs control panel, they would not be affected. You will have to remove them manually. By default, Limewire creates a folder under the user's My Documents folder called "shared," "downloads," or something similar (sorry, it's been a while since I used Limewire myself.)

Thank you. The Limewire folder has been deleted, along with the music files which were exactly where you said they would be, and the recycle bin emptied. Son has been adequately threatened.

When I run a search of the computer files now using the term limewire, nothing comes up. For some reason I thought you had to "uninstall" programs, not just delete their folders.

fpgill, on Nov 22 2009, 05:53 AM, said:

Sometimes folders are left behind after an uninstall but you still must "uninstall" a program when ever possible.
I always found limewire great for virus downlaods.

Uninstalling is the preferred method for removing software as it (usually) cleans up after the program. Deleting the folder will make the program unusable (since the files are gone) but it won't make any system-wide changes to remove the various hooks and tendrils that most software is apt to deploy when initially installed.

I would have preferred to uninstall it - but I couldn't figure out how to do it, since it doesn't appear in the 'add/remove' programs list. According to the link given (pcauthorities) about how to completely uninstall Limewire, at least one other person is having the same issue I am.

You could try using Revo Uninstaller to see if it appears it its uninstall list. Revo deletes all leftover file fragments and registry entries associated with programs uninstalled through it.