WinMX was served a Cease and Desist Order on Sept 19, 2005. On the Sept 20th around 16:00 GMT they pulled their peer caches (what you use to connect to the network) and WinMX became a lame duck, dead in the water..... Or so our enemies thought.

At this point, an effort by the users began to fight back. There is still a ways to go, but as of Sept 24, 2005 people are able to connect to the network as they were before the problem started.

In the long run I believe the results of the actions taken will in the long run make WinMX a better program, it will just take a little time to do so. I have ultimate faith in the WinMX community, it has come together better than anyone would have anticipated. Rather than fall apart, it has risen to the challenge. And for that I can only thank the user base and their loyalty to the program.

For Immediate help getting connected go to

If WinMX is already installed on your computer:

Get the WinMX Community PIEpatch here

Automatic Installer, just download and run. It does the rest.

If WinMX is not installed on your computer:

Get the PIEpatch here

Automatic Installer, just download and run. It does the rest.

After PIE Patch is installed, download and install WinMX

Free WinMX Download

The Setup Wizard will guide you through the rest of the process.

If you have any problems, please see Additional Help

For those who just want the hosts file without the installer: Get it here . This is a zipped file of the host file you will need to replace. It can be useful for those who use a program (some ad blockers etc) that actually do use the hosts file. This would allow you to copy and paste the contents of one into the other.