File sharing in IRC, while much harder than Bittorrent or the Peer2Peer networks, is often is the only source to find less popular, hard to find files. This tutorial assumes that you have downloaded and installed mIRC . mIRC can be downloaded and tried for free for 30 days, at which time you must buy and register it.

1) Open mIRC

2)The first screen that should pop up upon opening mIRC should look similar to this:

2 cont.) Type your name, email, and nickname, then on the left side of your screen, in the category menu, click on DCC. A window similar to this should appear:

2 cont.) Mark the buttons as shown, then click on the subdirectory "folders" under the DCC directory. You should see a screen similar to this:

3) Highlight the *.wav,*.mid... folder and click add. You should see a window like this:

4) In the Save files with these Extensions dialog box, type in the file extensions you will be downloading. I suggest typing *.rar,*.zip,*.tar,*.iso,*.exe to start with, along with any other file types that you may be downloading.

5) Now you will want to go to Isohunt.com or a similar site and search IRC for the files you are looking for. If a file is found it will display results in a box on the site that will look similar to this: (I used winamp for an example)

6) Click on the file name you want to download and a drop down window will appear. Click on the link in the channel column. IRC will automatically start and open up the correct XDCC or FServe window.

7) Hold down the CTRL and C key in the box with the red circle in the example shown below on your XDCC or FServe window, then

press enter

8) Your download will either start, or you will be put into the queue. When its your turn in the queue, your download will begin.