Is anybody here familiar with Ares?

[Angsty Meier Link]

If anyone can help me, I'm having problems just connecting to the Ares network. I just bought a new computer and the things I have done to try and make it connect are downloading an older version, cleaning out the registry before I do that, downloading the connection issue patch for ares, obviously unblocking it in the firewall, opening a port for it... letting it sit for about an hour! Is there something obvious I'm missing?