I hope you noticed that "USERJLP" is to be substituted with your actual windows login name.
Yes, had noticed that and substituted with my windows login name. Thanks.
If you open windows explorer, and type the %appdata% in, it will take you to your user profile directory and show you the actual path, where you will see "bitcoin", and below that "testnet3".
Thanks. %appdata% parses to C:\Users\USERJLP\AppData\Roaming
You should download the installer version of Bitcoin, and install it the normal way; it is much easier to support when you install it the same way as everyone else. Located here: http[Suspicious link removed]/download
When I went to get the wallet the first time for Windows, I clicked on Windows (zip) on
http://bitcoin.org/en/download, which took me to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.6/bitcoin-0.8.6-win32.zip/download. I had unzipped the file and double clicked on bitcoin-qt.exe. It sounds like bitcoin.org should remove the zip file option. Taking your advice, I downloaded http[Suspicious link removed]/download and installed it, which installed bitcoin-qt.exe into C:\Program Files\Bitcoin folder. When I launch Bitcoin-QT, it still does not run in testnet mode (I still have testnet=1 in C:\Users\USERJLP\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\bitcoin.conf and in C:\Users\USERJLP\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\testnet3\bitcoin.conf).
Yes, if you already have blockchain downloaded (which means something was working at some point), then you will need to add the -reindex option. If you don't know why you would need this, and are just playing around, you can probably just omit -txindex.
Bitcoin-QT in testnet did not download any of the blockchain. However, Bitcoin-QT in mainnet was downloading the blocks but I shut Bitcoin-QT down after it downloaded only a couple of weeks. Maybe this is causing Bitcoin-QT in testnet mode to think that the blockchain is downloaded?
I'm not playing around as I would like to accept bitcoins on my web app. To do this, I need to test the Bitcoin API by sending and receiving testnet coins. However, I don't know why I would need -txindex, so I'll omit it.
The only bitcoin.conf you should be worrying about is the one in the correct bitcoin\testnet3 data directory, nothing else is looked at. If you have done the above and have problems establishing connections to peers (hover over the cel phone bars in lower right and see how many connections), then likely something with your VM configuration or router is interfering with the connection.
I still have
C:\Users\USERJLP\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\testnet3\bitcoin.conf with testnet=1 as the only option.
I started C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe in testnet mode by running
bitcoin-qt.exe -testnet but it is still not synchronizing and still showing
"No block source available...". There are no cell phone bars in the lower right of the Bitcoin window. However, there is an icon showing two screens and a red X. Hovering over shows the message: "0 active connections to Bitcoin network". Does this mean that my VM configuration or router is interfering? If so, do you have any ideas on how to fix this? Why would they interfere with the connection in testnet mode but not mainnet mode?
Does it need to be synchronized in order for me to send or receive testnet coins?