WinMX How-To Guide

WinMX – The second most popular file sharing program after Kazaa is an excellent second source of files. And the best program for high quality MP3s, as Kazaa will only support MP3s up to 128KB/s. You can download WinMX from Zeropaid.com. As well as using the WinMX network, WinMX can connect to the OpenNap network of servers.

Searching for the files you want

Click Search at the top of the screen in and type the name of the song or whatever into the search box. You can search for any type of file you want - it doesn’t have to be an audio file.

Note: You can type the artist and song name separately and use two boxes, or put artist and song together in the one box.

To select a format click the MP3-Any Bitrate button.

After clicking Search, you should see some search results appear.

If you have Available Files On Top depressed, the best results are put at the top so simply select the topmost file and click Download.

The Status/Server column is the most important column. It shows how many users have open slots for a particular file. As WinMx features mulitsource downloading, more users with open slots means a faster download.

7+2 available – File is available for immediate download! Read as : 7 users with broadband connections and 2 users with dial up accounts have open slots.

Note: A “slot” is a download, so a user with 5 slots open can support 5 simultaneous downloads.

0 1 18 20 in lowest queues – Means you’ll have to wait for your download to start. Read as : One user has 0 people in his queue, another has 1 person in his queue, another user has18 people in his queue, and the last shown here has 20 people in the queue.

Note: When a file is unavailable (because the user with the file has no open slots) you will be put into a queue for that file. It works on a “first come first served” basis.

File will display all matches for your file. The plus sign shows more than one user has this file, and a click will expand the list to show you these users.

The Bytes is column is the size of the file. 3% of 5 678 475. This indicates that this file is a partial file. (But WinMX will download the whole file)

27+8 – Means 28 users are on broadband and 8 are on dial-up

The Ping column is the length of time it takes a short message to get to the user and back. Meant as a speed guide, but Status/Server is better for this.

It is possible to have your search put in a new window by selecting Search In New Window. This way can start a new search without having to wait for the old one to finish. Switch between tasks by clicking the buttons that appear at the top of the screen.

You can cancel a search simply by entering some new text in the search box and clicking Search again. Stop is not needed.

Before we move on to downloading, two downloading related buttons are presented on the search screen for your convenience – Auto Find Sources and Auto Enter Queue

With Auto Find Sources selected the program will continually search for new sources for download. Auto Find Sources is identical in operation to a separate speed-up program for Kazaa. Leave it set at 10m

Selecting one of your search results and clicking Download, will take you to the download page, where you can follow the progress of your download. Most users will leave the program running and browse the web or make a cup of tea at this point, and all being well, their files will be completed and waiting in their download folder on return.

You downloads can be cancelled any time using Cancel, and is advised to do this situations where the download is no longer required in order to free bandwidth for your other downloads.

The Transfers File List Window

The color of the files shows the status of the download.

John Lennon – Imagine etc – This file is downloading. Status will show progress bar.

John Lennon – Imagine etc – This file is queued. Status will say Remotely Queued 5 or similar

John Lennon – Imagine etc – This file has finished downloading. Status will say Complete

John Lennon – Imagine etc. – This file is not downloading. You may have no sources for this file. Sometimes this will show red when you are queued, but there was an error in connecting with one of the users in the group.

Try right clicking on the file and select Find Sources now. This will make WinMX search for the another user with this file. Alternatively, right click and select Search For Similar, where you can find another file with the same name as this.

Clear Complete button will clear complete files from the list.

Load Incomplete/Clear Incomplete toggle button will show/hide all incomplete files. You can use Clear for individual files.

Purge Users will clear inactive users from the screen. Most likely to be found under a file displayed in red.

Browsing A User’s Files

If you want to window shop, and don’t know exactly what file you want, a user’s files can be browsed. Select a user, from either the Search file list or the Transfers file list, right click and choose Add To Hotlist.

To view the Hotlist, you’ll need to click the Hotlist button located under just under the menu bar. Then you can chat to the user, and/or browse his files as if his they were located on your own hard disk.

Note: If you want to chat in a community, click Chat and a list of chat rooms will be presented. You can easily create your own chat room, too.

Maximising Your Download Speed

Click Bandwidth, then Adjust Incoming and Outgoing Bandwidth Throttles. It is advisable to limit your uploading bandwidth to 90% of it’s capacity in order to maximise your download speeds. This is because WinMx must acknowledge data packets received in order to receive another. A delay in the sending of this acknowledgement, in turn delays the next packet.

Avoiding Fake Files

Spoiling the network with fake files is tactic used by record and movie companies, to deter file sharers. The solution is the hash. A hash is a number that uniquely identifies a file whatever the file’s name. You can find movie hashes here : WinMx Movies

How Get More Search Results (The Networks button)

In addition to the WinMX network, WinMX is also able to connect to many OpenNap Servers simultaneously. In order to connect, though, you must have a number of connection details, like the IP address of each server and port number etc. These details are contained in a *.WSX file, which has to be loaded (or exported from another program) into WinMX.

Note: OpenNap is a descendant of Napster, and is not quite as sophisticated a network as the WinMX net. Each user must connect to a central server, which harvests everybody’s file list – which is then used by each client as an index. It is centralised. The WinMX net on the other hand, is decentralised (no central server) - each client handles it’s own list and responds to searches on it’s own.

If you click Networks and then OpenNap Protocol Networks from a new install you will see an empty file list, as WinMX does not have a list of servers built in as the list is continually changing (new ones added, old ones closing).

NapMX (available here) will download a current list of servers from the net (from www.napigator.com to be exact), and update WinMX from you. It is a simple program : simply open it, click Update List (meaning the server list), and Export, then choose either to export the list to a .WSX file or add it to WinMX directly.

You will see the server list filled with servers for you to connect to. Right click, choose Select All, and then hit the Connect button.

Note : You can also use WinMX’s own search feature to find the server list file. Click Find .WSX (which opens up the Search window with the search field filled in for you), and once you’ve downloaded it, click Import .WSX. NapMX is the recommend means to get a server list though.

Using WinMx with Firewalls

Add a firewall entry for WinMX for TCP port 6699 and UDP port 6257.

If you don’t have access to the firewall configuration program, you can download a program called SocksToHTTP, which will tunnel WinMX through the firewall. After installation, WinMX must be set up as follows :

http://winmxhelp.d2g.com/ A site with useful guides.