"Mommy wow! I'm a big kid now!" DC++ isn't tough to use at all. The only thing different about it is that you have to share a certain amount. Here's a guide I wrote in another thread: - Install it. (Get it from http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net) - Open it. - Go to File -> Settings if the setup screen doesn't automatically come up. - In General, type in a username, choose your connection type, and if you know your IP and are not behind a router choose Active and put your IP in the space provided. Description and email isn't necessary. - Then you should see Sharing on the left side of the screen, go to it. Add folders till you share atleast 5 gigs of stuff which includes atleast 100 mbs of ROMs and/or ISOs. And then on the same screen, look down a bit and allow 5 upload slots. - Close the settings window. - You should see the left most button which is a monitor with wire coming out of it. Click it. It will take you to the connect to hub screen. Look where it says Manual Connect Address. In there you type the hub name you wish to join (you shouldn't join more than 5 hubs otherwise crap can get slow). Here are some good hubs: emu.servegame.com hub.barnitos.net classicsega.homeunix.com romsterhub.ath.cx devious.sytles.net The last two hubs aren't as big as the top three but they are still good. - If you can get into a hub but when you try to download something and it doesn't work, go back to the settings screen and change the connection type from Active to Passive. Hope that helps. ------------------------- For IRC things are a bit different and complex. But thanks to www.packetnews.com and sites like that, it takes away a lot of the difficulty. Just type in the file name you want and it will search through the IRC networks and show you the results. Then you just click on one of the link there and it should open your IRC client and go to that channel, then you right click and paste in the chat box (when you clicked the link in PacketNews, it sends a little text thing to the clipboard) and it should be something like /ctcp blah blah blah and then press enter. Most of the time you will have to wait in line (or queue).