it's now been over 1.5 hour since i delete the files in appdata while keeping the wallet and conf.
still, 0 active connections.
conf has the nodes from op.
It seems that something is blocking your connections
or somehow perhaps your conf is not being read by the wallet.
Could you open up debug.log and see if there is anything
there about the nodes?
When you type getinfo to the console, do you see your own
ip there?
As for the all the coins in stake, that is a separate issue.
You can reserve a part of your balance so that they stay out
of staking.