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"But I don't really see why you would want to bother renaming the file" Frequently days or weeks pass between when I get the torrent file and when I actually start the download. Go to file>open and see about 30% of the torrents have those gibberish alphanumeric names (my solution so far is to double-click one of those and, in the next window, see what it is); since it doesn't matter what they're named (as long as, apparently, I haven't yet started the file download), I can rename the torrents as I download them.

I have torrent downloads in about half a dozen different directories and want to consolidate them into one. Once done, how do I tell bitcomet where the files are located so downloads and seeds can continue? Also, is it safe to rename a torrent file? ("Bob's Software V4.torrent" is comprehensible, "DF864bbr45KLp02.torrent" is gibberish)

Thanks. Only took a couple of days. But, on their site I read: "Please do not use BitComet, BitLord and its derivatives. They cause your ratio to be misreported, and cause transfer troubles." ???

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Checked the activity screen and nothing is shown using port 60000 (oddly, Firefox, which has been running for a couple of hours, shows nothing on the "listening" tab, nothing on the "connections" tab, and zero for packets sent/received and bytes sent/received). Went back to the history screen and every listing in the window showed port 60000 as either source or destination.

A quick check just now got this, details are for the third entry in the history window. I've tried to find specific programs associated with this problem, but usually just see "system" or "svchost".

It has been several hours since Bitcomet was last running, and Vista has been restarted during that time. I just took this shot of the firewall history, port 60000 is the Bitcomet listening port.

Have d/l'd PeerGuardian, read the FAQ (not very informative), but will peruse their forum before trying it. Any more information you can provide is appreciated. In some cases I've tried getting the torrent from a different source, but when I load it bitcomet tells me I already have it. Other times I find files so widely divergent in size that the only option would be to d/l all of them and see if any is what I seek. For one file I've been trying to get there are plenty of peers (as many as 70 once) but apparently we all have the same 60% of the file since there is never any activity in either direction. Other times I'll see a couple of seeds and several peers listed for a new addition to my tasklist but there is no download. How do I perform a "manual hash check"? And what will it tell me? As for Demonoid, apparently I must be invited to join. I read somewhere that you can occasionally tell a bad torrent by looking in the torrent file itself. Any truth to that?

I noticed that Limewire is a P2P program, so could I dump it and use bitcomet for my music needs also? Can I filter bitcomet to just search for music files?

First, I'm not one of those scrolling through lists of torrents with an "I want this. I want that" attitude. I'm usually seeking a particular file, do a torrent search, click on a result, select Pirate Bay (they're at the top, almost always have what I want, and give decent information), and look at the stats for that torrent before getting it. If zero seeds are shown I go back and try another; also read comments, if any, to see if others had any trouble (though these are all too often people requesting a different, similar, file to be uploaded). So, after trying to be practical about what torrents I select, I've still amassed quite a few that either never start or never finish. I get 35%-98% of a file and, no matter how long I leave the download active, never get the rest. I've considered that by foul coincidence I'm never online at the same time as whoever has the rest of the file (I usually leave bitcomet running all night, occasionally for several hours during the day). And, of course, it could just be a bad torrent. Is there anything I've overlooked in the selection process, or is there some way of determining a bad torrent before wasting all that time, and bandwidth, on it?

As I suspected. I did try other programs in the past (so long ago I don't remember which ones they were) but stuck with bitcomet because, as you said, it worked for me. I see no need to have multiple torrent programs; if one site won't cooperate with my program there are plenty of sites that will.

Having been to some sites that recommended not using bitcomet to d/l their files, and others which specify bitcomet as more reliable, I'm wondering what is the difference in these programs (and the numerous other torrent programs available). Why would bitcomet not work, or not work well, at a particular site?

FWIW, I use Avira with BitComet and have no problems. I think what may be happening is that BitComet will grab whatever connection resources are available when it starts; if you start your browser while BitComet is already running, the browser may not be able to get access. At least that's how it seems to work on my system. If I start Firefox first, then BitComet, both work (but they will share download bandwidth).

This would affect Firefox? MSIE came pre-installed with Vista; I have the disk around somewhere, plus the recovery drive. Don't wish to "upgrade" to IE8 as ATT tells me they have trouble with it.

Read through quite a bit of those topics, but most relate to the file not being opened at all. But posted my problem there also. Should mention, if either browser is already running, they will open the file immediately; so the problem only occurs when the browser isn't running.