My response was; bullshit! Ares never charge anyone. It’s a free software and open source.

Then I hit the net and found out exactly what he’s complaining about. The regular Ares are no longer updated. Since then the connection server has been taken down or simply obselete. The only choice for many others are to download one of those Ares clones. Yes Ares’ clones. Since the project was opensource, people has taken the advantage to update the program’s connection and charge people for the updated code.

So I tried this method. Install one of those ares clone, in my case Ares Vista;

1. Let it connect
2. Test download 1 or 2 songs
3. Close it
4. Open Windows Explorer
5. Open Tools, Folder & Options..
6. View..
7. Tick Show Hidden Files & Folder
8. OK
9. Go to C:
10. Document & Settings
11. Select current user (your account name)
12. Local Settings
13. Application Data
14. Ares Vista (or something similar)
15. Copy the “Data” folder
16. Paste it somewhere in your disk
17. Download & install original Ares
18. Install as usual & let it run (make sure you “unblock” it whan prompted by windows firewall)
19. Close down Ares, make sure it really closed down by righclicking the ares icon in the taskbar, near the clock & choose exit.
20. Copy the “data” folder that we saved previously
21. Repeat step 9-13
22. Open Ares folder and paste “data” in there replacing the original “data” folder.
23. Relaunch Ares & search the most popular & common artist, preferably in our own country.
24. Magically, it will list the song
25. Try download some of the popular song.
26. After that, you will be able to use Ares & connected automatically everytime.

The method described above are meant for XP only. Vista’s user might wanna look at: C:\Users\user account name\AppData\Local\Ares

Alternatively, you can download my “data” folder here: Mirrror 1, Mirror 2, Mirror 3

http://www.zshare.net/download/691314039f824b05/