Free file hosts are a dime a dozen these days. Everywhere you look, people are downloading lots of files from free file hosts. Whether you are a designer working with impossibly huge files, or just an average Joe who wants to send over a lot of photos to someone, you cannot ignore the ease of use and convenience provided by a free file host.
Rapidshare was probably one of the first such file hosts on the Internet, and to date it remains the biggest player in an ever increasing market.  However, if you’ve ever had to handle multiple Rapidshare downloads in a hurry, you’ll know how frustrating it tends to be to have to wait for 15 minutes before continuing on to your next download.
Unless you are one of those who possesses a paid account, you’ll know that it’s a royal pain to download as a free user. Some of us here at MUO face the same problem and so we’ve put together some methods to ease the pain of dealing with multiple Rapidshare downloads.
Rapidshare keeps a tab on your present IP and doesn’t let the same IP download multiple files in the space of 15 minutes. Therefore, it is only logical to conclude that if somehow one could keep changing one’s IP address at the end of each download, one can reduce the waiting time between subsequent downloads to a large extent.
If you are connected directly to the Internet (via Ethernet), you can just renew your IP by using some cool command line Kung-fu. However, if you are behind a router, you will need to follow a few more (slightly complex) steps to restart your router and assign it a new IP. We will cover both these methods below.
The ToolsPreviously featured Rapidshare download client, RapidDownload: We will be using this minuscule piece of software to automate the whole process of downloading a file from Rapidshare. This means no Captcha and no clicking through a thousand screens before you can reach your download. However, this won’t eliminate the 15 minute wait before your next download. For that you will need the tools mentioned below.
Telnet Scripting Tool: The Telnet Scripting Tool will load a script and pass it to telnet. For those who want to know about Telnet, click here. This script will then act as a mechanism to restart your router so as to assign a new IP address to your router.
Notepad: Notepad will be used to actually create the script, which will be passed to the telnet client. This comes with Windows.
Putting It All Together- The first thing that you’d want to do is download RapidDownload. Once done, extract it to a path of your liking.
- Next up, download the Telnet Scripting Tool and put it in the same folder as RapidDownload.
- That was the easy part. Now you’ll have to edit some files according to whether you are behind a router or directly connected to the Internet via Ethernet.
- Go to the folder where you extracted RapidDownload.
- Once there, right click on the file IP_Changer.cmd and click on Edit. This will open the file in Notepad (or your favourite text editor).
- Remove the word “REM†from each of the three lines at the bottom of the page.
- Save the file and exit.
- This is slightly more complicated, but with us guiding you along, you will do just fine. If you are on Windows XP, you will do just fine. If you are on Windows Vista/7, you will need to enable Telnet by going to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Turn Windows Components On/Off. Once there, place a checkmark next to “Telnet Clientâ€. Then click OK and wait for the process to finish.
- Next, create a TXT file in the same directory where you’ve extracted RapidDownload and Telnet Scripting Tool. Let this file be called “disconnect.txtâ€. Open it in Notepad. In there, type the  lines you see in the screenshot below and save the file.
NOTE: The command to restart a router may vary from router to router. Check yours by following the steps at the bottom of this tutorial.
- Now, finally edit the IP_Changer.cmd file and add the following lines at the bottom of it :Â TST10.exe /r:disconnect.txt
- Save the file and close it.
And that’s the end of the hard part. From here on in, just open the downloads.txt file in your RapidDownload folder and paste all the Rapidshare links that you want to download. Then launch rapiddownload.exe and keep it running. It will automatically download all the files you want.
You can fine-tune the process further by opening the rapiddownload.ini file and editing the line “SecondsOfWaitAfterIPChanger=120†and setting it to some other value which is more convenient for you (this should normally include the time it takes for your router to be assigned a new IP).
Once all that is configured, say goodbye to all the endless waiting times for Rapidshare downloads and have fun getting all the files you ever wanted. Do note that this isn’t a perfect process and one or two files may get skipped from time to time (although in my experience, that’s pretty rare).
As mentioned above, the command to reboot your router might differ. So use the following to find out your router’s keyword.
- Click Start > Run > cmd.exe
- Type telnet, and press enter.
- Type o 192.168.1.1 (or whatever the address is for configuring your router)
- Enter the username and password for configuring your router. In case you haven’t changed the default settings, type “admin†for both username and password. If nothing works check your router manual.
- Once you have logged in, type “?†(without the quotes) and press Enter. This will show you a list of all the commands that are accepted by your router. You should see a command similar to “restart†or “reboot†here.
- Type exit. Use the command you saw above in place of “restart†in the text file you are creating.
If you have other methods to easily handle multiple Rapidshare downloads, do share them with us in the comments.
Image Credit : stock:xchng.
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