Free Winmx help guide
Winmx history
Winmx began life back in 2000, developed by Frontcode, Winmx quickly rose in popularity and established itself in the then developing p2p market. Various developments were made to the software, until the most recent and final version 3.54 became available.
In September 2005 Frontcode recieved a letter from the RIAA demanding either the filtering of copyrighted works, or a complete shutdown, shortly after this on September 21st the network servers and website were shut down.
It seemed at that point that Winmx was dead, killed by the threat of legal action from the music industry cartels, however, very soon after the shut down, hardened users began to flock to the Vladd44 chat channel, among others, and very soon a number of users began working on work arounds to re-establish the network.
Just a few days after the shut down, the network began to splutter back into life, the word was spread and although slow at first, users began to return and reconnect to the much loved network.
The rebirth of Winmx, raised from the dead by community power, has not been without its problems, serveral groups running differing connection methods with opposing philosophys have clashed, often publically and to the detriment of the campaign to return Winmx to its former glory. In addition the Cartel, via various agencies have invested much time and money into disrupting the network and attacking users connections. The same tactic is being used on a number of networks today.
Once of the most interesting aspects of Winmx is its ability to host chat rooms, this has led to the establishment of a rich and diverse network of chat channels. The chat channels have had ahugely positive effect on the network by creating a real sense of community, something on the most part unrilvaled by many other networks.
Since the withdrawl of development support by Frontcode, Winmx as a client has been left to slowly age, and with no source code available, it looked set to eventually become simply out of date. That said, recently there have been rumours of a new client with the potential to take over where Winmx finished. The client is question is called Winpy
Winmx beginners guide
We have compiled a Winmx guide to get you up and running with the most commonly used features:
The guide is broken up into 3 main sections:
1. Connection settings
2. Searching and downloading
3. Chat functions
1.Connection Settings
This is what you will be greeted with when you open Winmx:
Connection Status:
This displays your current connection status:
Red: No Connection
Yellow: Attempting to connect
Green: Online
Network Identity: This is where you set your Winmx nickname, it can be pretty much anything you choose and can be changed anytime you wish simply by clicking on the 'change' button. Pay no attention to the numbers.
There are two different connection types these are:
1. Secondary - This should be used for any user not on a broadband connection, or who is firewalled and is not are to set up port forwarding.
2. Primary - This setting provides superior searching capabilities and is beneficial for the WPN (Winmx peer network). If you are behind a firewall and/or router, you will need to set up them up correctly for Winmx, this is known as 'port forwarding. Step by step help guides can be found at http://www.portforward.com.
IMPORTANT: If you do not have suitable IP blocking in place do NOT use primary connections, as you may well contribute to network flooding.
2. Searching and downloading
This is how the main search screen looks:
Please see below a brief description of the main functions within the search screen:
3. Chat functions
Winmx chat offer a diverse and often well run range of user hosted chat rooms. Please note each room is self moderated, chat can often be of an adult nature and some users may find elements of the chat environment in poor taste, please read the disclaimer carefully before entering this area.The vast portion of Winmx chat channels are excellent places to meet new people on the network. The chat window will looks like this when you open it.
The list of chat channels can take a little while to load.
If you are completely new to chatting, simply enter something of interest to you into the filter bar.
Example:
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Once you have arrived in your chosen channel you will see a new window (it sometimes takes a few seconds):
The name of the chat channel you have joined will be shown at the top of the page. On the right hand side of the page you will see a list of Winmx user names, your included, this is list of users who are current in that chat channel. You should be aware that many rooms have a list of rules for their users, please respect these rules, failure to do so may result in you being removed from that channel
At the bottom of the screen you will see a small window, this is where you can type in what you wish to say in the chat room, once you have typed your message press enter and you will see it appear in the main chat window.
Browsing other users in chat:
It is possible to check out other users shared files whilst in chat, to do so, see below:
To Browse right click on the users name in the right hand window and choose browse.
You will then see this:
Please be aware some users list maybe quite large and will take a few minutes to fully load for you to view.
To download a file from them, simply double click the desired file.
If you require further assistance, please visit our forum and post your question there.