How to Disable Sharing in Popular P2P Clients

The office of Information Technology Services does not recommend using P2P software.

Using P2P software can have serious consequences.

Copyright infringement, including sharing copyrighted works without permission, is both against SU policy and against the law. Consider that before you consider sharing music, movies, software, etc.

Instructions are provided below for disabling sharing for many popular P2P clients. Remember that downloading copyrighted works without permission is illegal, too. Steps may vary slightly for different client versions. Please note that some clients do not allow users to disable sharing, and many clients do not allow you to stop sharing completely.

• Ares
• BearShare
• eDonkey
• Kazaa
• LimeWire
• Morpheus
• Shareaza
• WinMX

Ares 1.9.1.3010

1. Choose Library on the main screen.
   
2. Click Preferences and select the tab that says Manual Configure.
   
3. Look for all drives and folders that have a red box next to their name. Uncheck all drives and folders, descending into subfolders where necessary, until no red boxes can be found.
   
4. You will have completely disabled file sharing once no drives or folders are highlighted in red.
   

BearShare Lite 5.2.3

It is not possible to completely disable all file sharing in BearShare.

Follow these instructions to limit sharing:

1. From the Setup menu select Folders.
2. Click on the button that says Deselect All.
   

*Note: You will notice that the My Downloads folder is still selected. It is not possible to deselect the My Downloads folder. In order to prevent items in the My Downloads folder from being shared, you MUST manually delete or move all files from this folder.

eDonkey2000/Overnet/eMule

It is not possible to completely disable file-sharing in eDonkey2000/Overnet/eMule.

If you choose to use file sharing software, we suggest that you not use the eDonkey2000/Overnet/eMule file sharing clients because the eDonkey2000/Overnet/eMule clients automatically share the contents of the folder that you have specified to receive incoming files and do not allow you to restrict file sharing.

KaZaA and Kazaa Lite

1. Click on the menu labeled Options and select Kazaa (Lite) Options.
2. Click on the Traffic tab.
3. Click the box marked Disable sharing and remove the Shared Folder at the top.
4. Click OK.
   

LimeWire 4.12

1. Select the Tools menu and click on Options.
2. In the Options window, click on Sharing and Remove any shared folders and delete shared Extensions.
3. Uncheck Share Finished Downloads.
4. Click Apply.
   
5. Select Uploads and drag the Upload Bandwidth Bar all the way to the left.
6. Uncheck the box next to Allow Partial Sharing.
7. Click Apply and then OK to apply the changes and dismiss the window.
   

Morpheus 5.4

It is not possible to completely disable file-sharing in Morpheus.

If you choose to use file sharing software, we suggest that you not use the Morpheus file sharing client because the latest Morpheus client automatically shares the contents of the folder that you have specified to receive incoming files and does not allow you to restrict file sharing.

Shareaza

1. Open the Tools menu and select Share Files. A new Shared Folder Manager window appears.
2. Use the Remove button to delete any shared folders shown. Click OK when the folder list is empty.
   
3. From the Tools menu, next choose Shareaza Settings. A new Settings window appears.
4. Click the Uploads option in the left-hand side of the window.
5. In the Options section, unselect both the Share NEW partial downloads and Share Preview Files options.
   

WinMX

1. Open WinMX.
2. Click Shared Files. A list of all directories that are labeled to share are displayed
3. Select each folder and then click on Unshare Folder.
4. Once there are no folders listed WinMX file sharing is unavailable.