total newbie!! please help me?!

[bebepet]

I hope you guys don't think I'm totaly stupid, but I really am just stumbling my way thru this and I could really use some explainations, like I was a 2yr old!

I have no real idea what I am doing, or what all the terms mean, even after reading thru the FAQ's. I feel like a retard, but if any one out there feels like walking me thru this I'd really appreciate it!

Thank you

[WebReaper]

Probably worth starting with a question. What exactly is it you want to know? Asking people here to help, without actually saying what you need help with, does hint of a 2-year-old.

[bebepet]

a message bubble popped up to tell me that one of my downloads was finished, yet is still seems to be working on something, is it really finished? do i manualy make it stop? when and how do i burn it to a dvd? how long should a download of a typical movie take? what does it mean where the two blue bars are, one showing 'downloaded' one showing (in not so solid blue) 'availability'? the download that said it was finished has an * in the # column, not a #, why? one of my other downloads that says 100% done has nothing in that space, what is the difference?

is that too many questions? i know i will have more, but i guess that's all for now. thank you! ;-)

[WebReaper]

1. When you've finished downloading, it's courteous and fair to upload the same amount so that others can share. That's what the torrent is doing after it's finished.

2. You could stop/remove it, but then you'd be leeching scum, and we'd have to kill you.

3. Read the announcement at the top of the forum. - how to burn/watch/play/install whatever you downloaded is not for this forum. Chances are your download was illegal, but regardless of that, using whatever you downloaded is a subject for elsewhere.

4. How long is a piece of string? A 'typical' movie could mean a 600mb divx with 200 seeders each uploading at 2Mbps, or it could be a 12Gb HD-DVD ISO with one seeder on dial-up. Depending on either of those factors, plus your own connection, a movie download could take anywhere from 10 minutes to 6 weeks.

5. Availability - read the faq.

[bebepet]

sorry about the burning question, guess i didnt' really think about where that ? was going! i am not able to get audio on a winrar file, should that ? be somewhere else?

thank you!

[WebReaper]

If by "?" you mean "question", but are too lazy to type it, you're unlikely to get any sensible response. Try writing properly and people may be able to help you.

And I think it's perfectly clear from the announcement at the top of the forum (and my post already) that any questions to do with installing/extracting/burning/playing content are not relevant to utorrent.com - you need to go and ask on the tracker you downloaded from.

[davidlatino]

First of all I am also a newbie…. I downloaded Utorrent on Monday and started using it right away, I am quite impressed to be honest with the speed, at least with the speed the program says it is downloading at. Although, I'm not sure of how it works yet because the files I am downloading aren't completed even when I have been online for the past 3 days. The downloading speed seems to be so high that they should be finished by now, perhaps days ago, but they aren't. I don't understand why…. To be more specific, would some one explain me why Utorrent have already downloaded 3.37GB as it says in the general transfer information tab while the file its only 700 MB? And why the file done percentage it's only 35%?

[Switeck]

There are numerous poisoned and fake torrents -- the poisoned ones cause you to download parts repeatedly. The fake ones contain garbage that isn't what they say they are.

RAR files are in NO way related to audio, video, CDs, or DVDs. They are like ZIP files and must have their contents uncompressed to use what's inside them. In a sense, they are like a file folder. It's what they CONTAIN that matters. By themselves, they're useless without a RAR reader. (I use Win RAR...but multiple file compression programs can read them.)

The more you know about your internet connection, probably the better results you can get with it. Upload and download SUSTAINABLE speeds (as opposed to PEAK speeds, stated by your ISP) are very important -- as you don't want µTorrent to cripple your connection so you can't do other things (like web surf) while it runs.

[spin]

First of all I am also a newbie…. I downloaded Utorrent on Monday and started using it right away, I am quite impressed to be honest with the speed, at least with the speed the program says it is downloading at. Although, I'm not sure of how it works yet because the files I am downloading aren't completed even when I have been online for the past 3 days. The downloading speed seems to be so high that they should be finished by now, perhaps days ago, but they aren't. I don't understand why…. To be more specific, would some one explain me why Utorrent have already downloaded 3.37GB as it says in the general transfer information tab while the file its only 700 MB? And why the file done percentage it's only 35%?

As stated above, when a file is finished downloading, it continues to upload it to the rest of the world. That's called "Seeding". You're donating just a little bit of your time to give it the rest of the world. If everyone did this, we'd have super bad ass speeds...ALL the time! But No! You guys don't give a damn do you? You know you don't. And IF you do.... Thank you x 186,003.

Want to know if your file is done and you're to stupid to know how to read the interface properly?

Right click the file that you're waiting for on uTorrent. Choose "open containing folder". Double click the file. Often (if it's a movie), it will not play because it's missing valuable parts of the header or whatever. If it won't play, it's probably not done. However, this can be dangerous, so do becarefull before just opening any file. Never know what it could really be.

So if you know you can view your file completely and it's still showing as "active" on uTorrent, then be considerate and leave it there for as long as you most possibly can. Then wait 3 days and THEN move the file if necessary.

Thanks

[fazsocial]

When I tried to download something it is stuck at 0.0% downloaded. Does this mean it hasn't downloaded? Do I need to do anything to make it progress?

[Firon]

Don't hijack threads.

[tienle]

Does uTorrent allow other users to browse my hard drive like Shareaza and WinMX do? If so, is there a way I can limit which folders others have access to?

[µtorrent-Guest]

No

does not apply then

http://www.utorrent.com/beginners-guide.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

[Firon]

BitTorrent is not ed2k, or Gnutella, or WinMX, or a traditional P2P network.

[Hylex]

I strongly agree that users need to seed a file after downloading one. I good rule of thumb--and is one I use--is have a ratio of at minimum 1.500 (150%.) That way (if everyone did this) we would be giving more than taking and the torrent world will be a much happier place.

[tienle]

I get that BitTorrent isn't like WinMX. When I have Shareaza open, however, people *do* browse the one folder I made available and download directly from it. I'd like to make the same folder available in uTorrent.

Thanks for the link to the beginner's guide.

[Ultima]

Browsing of shared folders absolutely won't happen. Ever. The closest you'll ever get to that is creating a torrent with all the contents of that one folder, but if you change anything, you're screwed and have to remake the torrent. Newly added files won't be included in the torrent either, but that's what you'll have to live with. If you require real-time sharing of the folder, BitTorrent simply isn't the way to go -- it was never designed to do such a thing, and adding it would basically require a total rewrite of the protocol.

[misplaced]

hello. i have just recently instaled utorrent 1.5 ... the problem is, i cant get it to download any thing. the last time i used utorrent before i formated my HDD, i remember having to change something in the "advanced" section, (something like *true or what ever) i just dont remember what. I can get the torrents but they wont start to download, and all i get is yellow conection light. Thank you for your help.

[osm0sis]

I get that BitTorrent isn't like WinMX. When I have Shareaza open, however, people *do* browse the one folder I made available and download directly from it. I'd like to make the same folder available in uTorrent.

I think you've confused the idea of sharing with p2p (peer-to-peer) in general. You download files with the BitTorrent protocol using a .torrent file, which contains hashes to make sure everything downloads correctly. it is a good rule of thumb with bittorrent to share back at least what you've downloaded (this is on a per torrent basis) to make sure that others have a chance to get it too. you do not "share folders" with bittorrent. it is simply a way to download files and the only sharing that takes place is with the files you're seeding or are currently downloading (you share the peices you've already gotten).

i hope this was illuminating.

[Ultima]

@misplaced: Why do you feel the need to cross-post? Please stop it. I saw your message in the other thread already, so keep everything in there.

[tienle]

I get that BitTorrent isn't like WinMX. When I have Shareaza open' date=' however, people *do* browse the one folder I made available and download directly from it. I'd like to make the same folder available in uTorrent.[/quote']

I think you've confused the idea of sharing with p2p (peer-to-peer) in general. You download files with the BitTorrent protocol using a .torrent file, which contains hashes to make sure everything downloads correctly. it is a good rule of thumb with bittorrent to share back at least what you've downloaded (this is on a per torrent basis) to make sure that others have a chance to get it too. you do not "share folders" with bittorrent. it is simply a way to download files and the only sharing that takes place is with the files you're seeding or are currently downloading (you share the peices you've already gotten).

i hope this was illuminating.

Hmmm, I do understand the difference between P2P and torrent. I must be mis-stating my question. Lemme try again. When I have the BitTorrent client Shareaza open to download and share torrents, I can right-click on individual users and select 'browse'. This connects me to that user's computer. If that user allows, I can browse through whatever files that person has made available and choose to d/l files directly from that computer. In my case, I've made available my movie trailer folder for others to d/l. Upon occasion, while torrents are being shared, I note that someone has browsed my folder and chosen a trailer to d/l.

My questions are these: Is there a 'browse' function in uTorrent? If so, how does one set the folders to make available for browsing?

[Ultima]

No, there isn't, and there won't ever be. BitTorrent was never designed to allow such a "feature," and it'd have to be redesigned ground-up if that were to ever happen. Since the BitTorrent philosophy isn't to share any file and/or directory in real-time, but to decrease bandwidth load on the initial servers, that won't happen even in a redesign, or at least it wouldn't be considered BitTorrent anymore at that point.

[osm0sis]

Sharazea has BitTorrent protocol included in it i believe, but beyond that it's basically emule or some other shite like that. that's where you're getting confused. BitTorrent works exactly like i've already explained above. Sharazea just has that other p2p crap built into it to try and be an "all-in-one" p2p program, and THAT's what your "Browse" function is part of. not BitTorrent. So as Ultima has been saying for several posts now, µTorrent supports no such thing and never will since it's not part of BitTorrent.

[tienle]

Okay then, thank you very much for being patient enough for me to understand.