"Art Todesco" wrote

| If I double click on my d: drive and then right click on the folder
| where all my files and subfolders are kept, I show it as read only but
| with a grayed check mark.

That's been true for a long time. It's meaningless.
But you mentioned files, too. Forget the folders. Are
there actually files you can't edit? If so, what program
is telling you that? If you edit a TXT files does Notepad
refuse to save it? Does all of your software refuse to
save changes to anything? If all you're concerned about
is read-only folders then you don't have to worry. Even
on XP folders are read-only. It allows the system to
assign custom icons using a desktop.ini file.