WINMX 331 AGGRESSIVE DOWNLOADING GUIDE v1_7.txt This applies to WINMX 3.

31 (make sure you turn word wrap on) History: 01/31/03 01/30/03 01/26/03 01/25/03 01/21/03 01/16/03 01/14/03 01/13/03 v1.7 v1.6 v1.5 v1.4 v1.3 : reorganized v1.2 v1.1 v1.0 : first draft

*.* Intro: ********************************************************** Some other WINMX "tip" files are very useful. WinMX has all the skills down. There loads so I'm helping you all have circulated around for awhile, and some of them become a fantastic tool for me but only after I got are too many frustrated people with incomplete down out with this handy-dandy compilation.

Before reading this, however, you should read the documentation and learn to use the software. You should be able to achieve a connection (be able to search), know the different windows (search, transfer, shared files, settings) and what i nformation they contain and how to use them, how to deal with people (browse, w hois, send messages chat). You should also know how to right-click, because Win MX's button layout is atrocious. I'll be updating this regularly so check back. Planned is a nice HTML version, and the addition of lots of links to articles, forums and other further informat ion. *1* Set your expectations!!! *************************************** WinMX is not a file server; not every download will work; in fact, expect to hav e 50% failure rate. You need to learn to use the software, learn effective stra tegies and get around people trying to screw it all up. But when you get good a nd wizened and wary and expect some disappointments... it's very very good. The second thing is: you need to do research. When you start out you won't have the correct players, codecs, filters and so many of the files you get won't pla y (see the Software section). Don't give up and delete them! There are some gr eat playback and ripping sites out there which have some useful guides or forums where you can ask questions; usually your problem has been experienced and sol ved by many other people. *2* Network Settings ********************************************* - DON'T FOOL AROUND WITH SETTINGS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. You can easily make win mx nonfunctional by doing this. If you find yourself becoming your own enemy, r eset the defaults or reinstall winmx. - FIND OUT YOUR ACTUAL CONNECTION SPEED in kilobytes/second for upstream (to the net) and downstream (to you). This will help you judge how well you're doing a

nd how to set throttling. Consumer DSL is usually roughly 60KBs down / 30KBs up . Good cable modems are roughly 300KBs down and 60KBs up. You can take your IS P's specification in kilobits (Kb/s), divide by eight, then chop off about 25% f or network overhead and real-world situations; that's your bandwidth in kilobit s (KB/s). - DON'T CHOKE YOUR BANDWIDTH - many people set their throttle speeds way too low . Throttling is necessary if you want to have control over how much certain peo ple get who are downloading from you (ie, for trades), or wish to be polite to p eople you are sharing a network with. Most of the time it will work just fine ( or better) with the throttles unchecked. Your OS and the network routers will e nsure that everything gets what it needs. - UPSTREAM BANDWIDTH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DOWNSTREAM BANDWIDTH. Many people s till think that the more bandwidth they give to people downloading from them, th e less they have for themselves. No! They are seperate channels in all cases i ncluding dialups, DSL, LANs and cable modems, so cutting down people's downloads won't help you in the least. Just don't think that; if you can't help it, try hitting yourself with a brick. - THROTTLE PROCESS INTERVAL - in theory, the shorter the interval the more corre ctions WINMX can make to maintain the bandwidth limits and priorities you've set . Normally this should make very little difference. However, I've seen wild ba ndwidth fluctuations for people uploading when this is too high (I keep mine at 150ms). If you have a slow CPU (<400mhz), having this process fire more frequen tly can noticably nibble away at your cpu cycles. - USE A PRIMARY CONNECTION - it's much more effective. Firewalls are the bigges t impediment to this; winmx needs to be able to accept traffic and requests on 2 ports (1 for TCP, and one for UDP). If you don't have either, you're not goi ng to be able to share and people aren't going to want to share with you. Consu lt your network admin, firewall manual or local geek. - PRIMARY CONNECTION ADVANCED SETTINGS - i *believe* this deals with winmx contr ol resources used by gathering search results, negotiating connections, etc. If you're doing lots of searches or have MANY queued files that WINMX needs to con stantly communicate with other hosts, then raising this will probably benefit yo u. (notice how slowly other peoples' file lists download when you browse them). *3* Downloading ***************************************************** - GO FOR POPULAR FILES. This way, WINMX can constantly grab from multiple sourc es around the clock. With broadband you should be able to get a full movie in 1 2-24 hours. - MAKE WINMX DO ALL THE WORK. In your transfers window, set each file to "Autofind sources: every 10 Minutes" and "Auto Enter Queue: 100". So, every 10 minu tes winmx will check for new sources and get in line up to spot 100. This is mu ch better than you wrestling with WINMX and with people about trading. **TRY THI S IT'S VERY POWERFUL** You can prioritize this way, too. - JUST GET IN LINE - like in any form of communism, you need to get in line earl y and be prepared to wait a long time. However, be optimistic because like in a ny long line, it moves ahead at a good pace due to people passing out ahead of y ou. So, being 109th in line isn't necessarily so bad, but it's obviously bette r to be 1st in line. Think about when people get online to download stuff and d o repeated searches then (weekend late mornings, weekday mornings, weekday after work hours).

- MAX POSSIBLE DOWNLOADS - set this all the way up, if you can handle the excite ment. This is one cause of "(queued locally)" download statuses (and "busy" hos ts). - tip: periodically and after queuing downloads, check your transfers window. I f you see "(queued locally)" select that source and do "start transfer" - it wil l become "(busy)". When you see "(busy)" do "enter remote queue". I've never u nderstood what the heck "busy" means. Is it washing its hair? *4* Sharing Files ************************************************** - SHARE YOUR FILES! When people with good files see you downloading but you're not sharing files yourself, you're libel to get kicked out or ignored. This is the way it should be to keep this alive. Don't have any files? Grab some rippi ng software and learn to us it. (see software section) - VERIFY YOUR FILES BEFORE SHARING THEM. There's tons of misnamed files on the web, as well as files of terrible quality. Don't share your winmx\incoming dire ctory. - TRADING. It's a good way to get complete files, and sometimes the ONLY way to get obscure ones. Just ask someone you're downloading from if you have anything they want. Use the bandwidth priority in the downloads window to give them a g ood chunk of bandwidth. (10-20KB/s is reasonable) and they'll return the favour . Weekday evenings and weekend afternoons are the best times to trade. - PRIORITIZE PEOPLE WHO SHARE. People who don't share are useless to the networ k. You want to share files with people who will share them with others, especia lly if they're obscure and hard to find. - HELP THEM HURRY UP. If you see someone who's almost finished downloading your file, give them some extra bandwidth and help them complete. Don't disconnect people (or disconnect, yourself) when they're almost done. An incomplete downlo ad is worthless. - PICK A REASONABLE # OF SLOTS FOR DOWNLOADERS. It's better to offer a small nu mber of download slots (or rather, "max total uploads") with higher bandwidth; it leads to more completed downloads for people. I do 2 users, in case one pers on is slow. Also, limit each user to 1 download at a time. Be fair. (sorry ab out the confusion between "upload" and "download". Technically, everyone is dow nloading... but what they're downloading you're uploading to them. Get it?) - WHY ISN'T ANYONE DOWNLOADING?? - if you have good files and noone's downloadin g, you either must reconfigure your "shared files" directories, or deal with a f irewall issue. - RUN WINMX 24x7. You need to let WINMX run for long periods of time, at least if you want huge files. WINMX needs to build a list of who else is out there, a nd the more people you can see the more you can download from. Plus, it takes t ime to download little pieces from many people. I generally go for 7 days and r eboot once a week, and take that opportunity for weekly maintenance. *5* Searching ****************************************************** - Search for something REALLY popular (like the letter "e") before you do your o bscure searches... this way winmx can get a jump start on its host list (i read this somewhere else).

- You can speed sources for the tting stuff but tra competetive ding them; but u may see black

up downloads by constantly re-searching and manually adding new same file. WINMX can be set up to be pretty aggressive about ge doing this yourself (in addition to WINMX) will give you that ex edge. Note that green search results means your already downloa if there's multiple sources, expand the sublist (the "+") and yo files, which are untapped sources... go get em!

Sources for the same file will be a green expandable line. Once you expand it, the green sourcs will be who you're already downloading from, black are untapped sources. Queue up all the black ones; they'll go green, then black again; wa it for this and queue them again and they should stick. Or, once you have a fil e downloading, just do "search for alternatives" and queue everything you see. - Ignore connection speed, queue place, etc. There's no way to tell what how a download will go, unless you know that particular person. - Watch for warnings from other people in the filename, (ie, "STAR TREK NEMESIS. AVI <<-- THIS IS TELETUBBIES YOU IDIOTS!!.AVI"). - Look for different instances of the same filename with different file sizes. Probably, there was a valid original file that "they" used to rename lots of fil es with but you're going to have to try a few to find it. - Try searching first on sharereactor.com for rip reviews and look for files wit h those sizes on winmx. (they are for eDonkey2000 and Overnet clients). Those are usually excellent rips and make their way to winmx pretty quickly. You can try those clients, they're good, but winmx is larger and much more powerful. *6* Dealing with Misnamed Files and Other Seething Evil ************ - SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVES! This is someone else's tip and it works well. When you first download a selection, flip over to your transfers window and do "searc h for alternatives" on it. If it's a popular file, you'll get lots of sources a nd each source's filename. Look for alot of people who have the complete file a nd the same filename (they've probably looked at it an not deleted it)... is thi s what you wanted? Is sex with animals your thing? It might be. - VERIFY YOUR FILES BEFORE SHARING THEM. Unshare your winmx\incoming directory. You don't have to download the whole file to check its validity. While it's d ownloading, copy the "INCOMPLETE" file and play that. Resharing bad files is a nuisance to everyone, and makes it easy for saboteurs and pinheads to distribute them. (note: Some files, like AVIs, can't be played with regular players if they're incomplete. There is software available which can do this well enough to make some judgement about it. It is freely available.) - WARN OTHERS. Tell people the file they're downloading is fake. You can also re-share this file with a warning in the filename that others will see when they search. - There's been alot of file corruption lately. One thing that has worked on occ asion is: When you see a bunch of "file mismatch errors" but you're downloading consistently okay from one source, try downloading the entire thing again witho ut the "good" source. See, if you're downloading from a corrupted source, every one else's file will be wrong. Perhaps they'll add a feature in winmx to get a consensus from available sources on data integrity.

*7* System issues *************************************************** - CONSIDER TWEAKING OS NETWORK SETTINGS - While dangerous for the newbie, these can make a noticable (but not huge) difference. Older operating systems are tun ed for dialup connections, and consumer operating systems generally don't have t he same tuning as server OS's... but that doesn't stop you from tuning your box as a fast server. Look online for windows network optimizing utilities, registr y tweaks, etc. SysInternals.com has several neat performance tools, especially "frob". - WATCH YOUR CPU METER - You can get a preliminary idea from the task manager (N T, XP, 2000) what's chewing into your CPU cycles. When you hit maximum, connect ions can't get serviced and they start to time out and drop. I'm using an 4-yea r-old computer and with careful tuning I'm able to run several P2P apps at once (all on different networks) with about 20-30 concurrent transfers. - DO REGULAR MAINTENANCE - I strongly recommend running winmx 24x7 for maximum b enefit. However, realize that there are issues with doing this, including your electric bill and wear and tear on your system, especially your hard drives. Yo ur disks will get fragmented Very quickly and they will have to work harder. De fragment! Scan your drives for errors! Reboot! And for god's back up your arc hive; if you tax a [consumer] hard disk constantly for a year it is bound to fai l and you will lose everything.

*8* Software ******************************************************** - AUDIO - winamp. (I've never needed anything else) - VIDEO - first, search for and download "nimo codec pack"; this should have all the decoders you need. Some good players include bsplay/bsplayer and radlight. I'm not a fan of Windows Media Player because it tells microsoft what you're w atching, it's doing unknown DRM things and there aren't enough settings to get s tuff to look right. I've heard good things about video quality in ATI's and nVi dia's players. - CODECS - (coder/decoder) I recommend "Nimo Codec Pack" which is pretty compreh ensive, but if it's Nimbo Version 5 Build 8 DO NOT install the included "ffdshow " which causes XVID problems (installation will allow you to find and unselect t his component). Instead, get ffdshow build date 6/17/02 or later; they are on s ourceforge.com. There is also "Ace Codec Pack" but I haven't used it. - TV OUTPUT - Newer, high-end television sets have DVI or VGA inputs... this is excellent but you need to program custom video modes (generally). Look at "Pow erstrip" for this. Also, some folks with regular s-video or composite TV-out po rts have trouble with colors and weird borders or scaling effects; try "TVtool" . - RIPPING TOOLS - I would go to ripping sites like www.digital-digest.com (and m any others) and read about it, because you can't just download software and expect it to have decent results. Search on google and read about this stuff: EAC (exact audio copy), O gg Vorbis, Divx, Xvid, 3vix, Xmpeg, Gordion Knot, Flask mpeg, Vidomi, DRM (digit al rights management), CSS / DeCSS. - SECURITY + NETWORK FIREWALLS are generally hardware. There's a million companies that make affordable ones including Linksys, Netgear, Macsense, Belkin, SOHOware. I

HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING ONE. + APPLICATION FIREWALLS: Kerio, Sygate, ZoneAlarm + INTRUSION DETECTION: Black Ice, SysInternals + ANTIVIRUS: McAfee, Trend Micro, Symantec, F-prot *9* Quality ********************************************************** Quality is one of the biggest problems with P2P, especially if you think you're some kind of connoiseur. The quality of ripped/recompressed files are never as good as the storebought CDs and DVDs. This is very apparent when you compare th em on good, high fidelity / high definition equipment. Many rips out there suck or are inordinately huge and it just annoys me that peo ple can't get it right... It's Not That Difficult, folks, but you need to know w hat you're doing and have a sense of quality. A high resolution video is defin itely nice (ie, 640x352) but it's also incredibly important for it to be sharp; the sharper it is, the easier time the scaling algorithms will have maintaining that sharpness when resizing it to some given monitor's resolution. Also, man y people seem to think that higher bitrate and larger size gives better quality; this isn't necessarily the case. I've seen a billion 128kbs mp3's that are bet ter than 320kbs ones, and 2-gig movies that aren't as good as 800mb ones. So, please PLEASE do research online and understand what you're doing. Have a c ritical, discerning eye/ear for quality. It does not require a PhD in computer science. Also, when you reshare files you've downloaded, add any notes about qu ality to the filename. *10* Be Careful, Stupid! ******************************************** Most of what goes on here is illegal. Do not forget that if any of us ever end up in court for this, it will be treated the same as shoplifting (how many rippe d CDs and DVDs do you have?) or selling stolen goods (you're trading, aren't you ?). Companies have been known to contact ISPs and get them through legal pressu re to release your name and address and the ISPs don't have to tell you about it . Then, they may send you a cease-and-desist notice and possibly press charges. They are scouring the networks and compiling lists of people whom they can dig their teeth into as soon as it becomes safe public policy for them. And, media companies, paid saboteurs and Concerned Citizens are actively trying to interru pt and hack into P2P networks. So: - don't attract too much attention to yourself - routinely change your name and reset your IP address - try rotating your collection (or share only the most rare, hard to get items) - use good security practices (see software section) - read relevant news and stay abreast of what's going on *APPENDIX A* A Short Manifesto on P2P ****************************** No matter how you cut it, when you steal or distribute other people's property y ou are hurting them. However with CDs and DVDs the people you are PRIMARILY hur ting are the middlemen. These are the slimey dealmakers and marketeers who deci de that you ought to pay $25-$60 for a DVD which costs $1 to make, $3 to license and $56 to market and distribute. I think that because of the internet, the traditional distribution channels are becoming more and more irrelevant; look at the boom in online stores and electro

nic software distribution as an example. Nonetheless, they want to keep you in t hose channels for no other reason than their own survival. Granted, alot of goo d honest hardworking people work for these companies, but these companies are ir relevant, sapping our money and doing damage to our legal system with all these crazy bribes and laws to protect their way of doing business. I say, unless the y can evolve and embrace the situation in some productive way, they should becom e obsolete and extinct in the normal capitalistic way. Now about the people creating this stuff. Keep in mind that artists get very li ttle IF ANYTHING from CD sales. Usually the artist is charged for making and ma rketing the CD, thus they shoulder the risk and not the company. So, artists co uld care less about P2P, because they make all their money from concerts and mer chandise. Movie companies are more complicated because of all the people involv ed, but what's similarly objectionable is that the people at the top (executives , directors, actors) negotiate huge salary and royalty deals while the people do ing production work don't make that much at all and definitely don't get royalti es from aftermarket sales. Are you justified in stealing stuff? Probably not. Is the cost of the middleme n justified? Probably not either. Do I have any black and white philosophical conclusions? Probably not! However, I do have some machiavellian proposals. This current system DOES need to change; we're tossing our money not to the har dworking artists, but to manevolent, useless, self-serving companies. These com panies have no respect for us, nor for the artists, nor for our government; they just want as much money as they can get from us. If we want to battle their pr ice fixing, manipulation of our legal system, intrusive marketing, slimey busine ss practices and Bad Dollar Value we need to do something. This P2P thing, whil e ethically and legally dubious, has at least scared these companies. We should maintain this leverage and force them to restructure their business. But to fo llow through on this we need to fight back against people who seek to destroy it , including paid saboteurs, purchased senators, the angrily righteous and the am bivalent. Get involved and go DO SOMETHING. When they learn to respect the artist and the consumer, and provide a price and value to us that is attractively better than the tediousness and illegality of P 2P, then we will simply and naturally buy from them again. After all, CDs and D VDs are worth purchasing and they're always superior to the free stuff.