What You Need to Know Before You Forward Your Ports



Below is some basic information you need to know in order to get your WinMX working properly through a router or Network Address Translation (NAT) capable DSL/Cable Modem.  There are thousands of brands and models out there so this will be a basic overview of what you need to know before you get started.

Many people are unaware they need to set ports up in their router until they realize that the WinMX program isn't working right, like no downloads, no uploads or unable to make a primary connection.  Almost all routers and many DSL/Cable modems require you to set up the ports for other computers to communicate properly with yours.  If you are having troubles with WinMX and are behind a router, more then likely this will fix your troubles.

The site I love to use for helping people with setting up Routers is PortForward.com, they do a great job in keeping upto-date on the latest routers and the configuration process.  They give simple step by step instructions, with pictures to follow.  Lets talk about what you need to know before you head that way.

If you would like more information about what a router does and why, or the language used when talking about forwarding ports go here:
What Is A Router
Information About Portforwarding

First thing we need to do is find out what ports your WinMX is set to use.  There are two ports that need to be open for WinMX to work right, your TCP and your UDP ports.  If you have never changed  these in WinMX the default ones are:

Incoming TCP  6699
IN/OUT UDP 6257


To find out what ports you have set in WInMX go to Settings > Internet Connections > Incoming TCP Connections.  It will say Listen on port ...... for incoming TCP.
Then go to IN/OUT UDP Connections.  It will say Send and receive datagrams on port .......
Write these numbers down for future reference.
If these options are greyed out, tick them so that when we have the router set up your WinMX will be ready to go.
Keep in mind any changes to these sections on WinMX will require you to restart WinMX in order for the changes to take effect.






The next information that some routers and modems require is the Internal IP. This is the internet address your router or modem uses to identify which machine on your LAN ( Local Area Network) you want to forward ports for. You need to understand what an Internal IP and a Gateway IP are.

An Internal IP is the address your router will assign to the computers on your network, each computer on your network will have a different one even if there is only one computer in your house it will still have a Internal IP.
A Gateway address is the address you use to access your router.

To get this information do the following:
Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Command/MSDos prompt, in the box type in ipconfig for getting the Internal IP only, or ipconfig /all to get the Internal IP and the Gateway IP.
Write these down for reference later.
Most (not all) Gateway and Internal addresses begin with 192.168.?.?  and only the last digits will be different from each other.



Above you see the Internal IP in red, and the Gateway IP in blue.
If for some reason you are unable to carry out the command above, download the program below and run it, this will give you your Internal IP.  
Most Gateway IP Addresses will be listed for most models on the Portforwad site.
WinMX Unlimited IP GetR
Huge Thank You to Josh of WinMX Unlimited for making this little program to help us out!


Now its time to find out the Brand and Model number of your router, by looking at the router itself.  Most routers will have this information on the front panel.  There are many models of router, so its very important that you write down the numbers exactly, so when your ready to use PortForward the instructions match your model.
NOTE:  The folks at Portforward.com have thousands of models listed, if you have a newer version of a well known brand that is not listed, sometimes a similar model's instructions will sufice.

One of the last things that we need to talk about are Static IPs.  This is the ability to set a IP for your specific computer in the router so that it will never change. (routers often have a list of many IPs they are able to assign, and power outages, reboots and even just regular use can cause your router to assign a new IP to a existing computer.)  
NOTE:  Its been my experience that on a home network of one or two computers this is NOT allways necessary and I usually tell folks in this situation to SKIP this step, we can always set one later on if you find its a problem.  If you dont however and the router/modem assigns a new Internal IP for some reason you may find yourself waking up one day and your WinMX or other rules wont work.
Setting a Static IP


Now that you have the information you need written down on some scarp of paper beside your computer, its time to get down to the actual job.  Get your self a cup of your favorite beverage, and a hand full of Cheeto's and take a breath.. this isn't hard at all.


First step is to visit PortForward.com Router Section and scroll down the list finding first, the brand name of your router then the model number.  Click on it once from the list, now you will see a page that gives you some choices, choose Port Forwarding for your Brand and Model number by clicking on it once.
Now you will see a list of many programs that might require ports to be forwarded to work right, you can scroll down the list until you find one your working on or until you find WinMX, click it once.  

If you dont see your brand of router there feel free to contact us here on site and we will set up a guide for your brand.
For BT Home Hub please visit here:
BT Home Hub Guide
For Thomson SpeedTouch 580 please visit here:
Thomson ST 580 Guide
For Zonet zsr0104f please visit here:
Zonet ZSR0104F Guide


Now! your ready to begin following the steps to setting up your ports.  
Remember that WinMX requires you to allow a port for your TCP protocol and a separate port for your UDP protocol, choosing the BOTH option, or setting ranges of ports will NOT work.
Note:  Never use Port Triggering for WinMX ports.


Thats it, your ready now to jump in there and set your ports!!

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