> I pasted the above link in the Web Address field.
> Would this download the entire root forum onto my
> system , or just the sub-forum i have specified  

Since the page has a link to My Forums, you would get everything.

> I am trying to download a specific web forum onto my
> system.Actually i am interested in all posts to 
> <http://forums.sun.com/forum.jspa?forumID=54&start=0>
> (including posts, User profiles etc). However I
> don't want to download any information that is not
> connected to this forum.
Threads have this form:
<http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5407471&tstart=270>
Users have this form:
<http://forums.sun.com/profile.jspa?userID=988148>

-* +*forumID=54* +*threadID=54* +*/profile*

> I mean I want to look at posts in this forum,profile
> of users in this forum, and only download those
> posts outside the forum which are by users who posts
> in this forum as well

"posts outside the forum" conflict with your previous "don't want to download
any information that is not connected to this forum"

If you allow all threads (from all user posts) then you'll get all users in
that post, their profiles, and all those posts, etc. (Almost everything.)

If you limit depth to 4 you'll get:
page 1 listing, threads, profiles, user posts
page 2-10 listing, threads, profiles
page 11-19 listing, threads
page 20-28, listing only.