[dba-Tech] Getting rid of some folders

I am pulling my hair out over this. I have folders such as this:
C:\Fr4\Noel
C:\Fr4\NoelLivingstone
C:\Fr4\oconner

I can't seem to get rid of them. First, I was just deleting them. But I
eventually noticed that they'd come back. Tried a number of times before
starting to research it. The common issues seem to involve dropbox or
folders that are shared. I don't have dropbox, and the folders aren't
shared. One place that I found suggested "copy" the name of the folder,
delete it, then make a new folder, pasting the name in. Then empty recycle
bin and reboot, then delete the now empty folder. I did that for about 1/2
dozen folders and it worked. Those are now gone and haven't returned. So I
started doing the rest of them (20 more). But it's not working for those.

I've even done these steps ONLY. IOW, boot up, do that routine, empty the
recycle bin, then reboot. Not running any other programs like email etc.

On the Tech Support Guy List Tech Support Guy List (http://www.techguy.org)
which is not very active, one person asked, and I answered:

> 1. What operating system?

Vista - sorry, I thought I had put that down.

> 2. Has this computer ever had Nortons on it? Nortons does weird things 
> with its "protected" recycle bin. Even after Nortons has been 
> uninstalled, it can leave some of these strange remnants behind.

Only long enough to get the computer home when I bought it (2007).
Uninstalled immediately (I hate Norton), then went through the registry and
deleted Norton references. So, in effect, no. 

> 4. Try right-click "delete on boot". This is included in several free 
> utilities such as Gipo Utilities, which will add this useful line to 
> your right-click menu.

While looking to see if I had this option, I discovered something. The
entire Fr4 folder was read only. I've changed that, and will see if that
works. If not:

> 3. What happens if you delete in Safe Mode?

Hmm, haven't thought to try that. After I get this email off, I'll try that
if changing the read only option doesn't work (no idea how it got that way).

> 5. I assume that normal folders delete OK, and that this is associated 
> only with your "FR4 folders". Does FR4 mean anything---associated with 
> any particular program which might be protecting these folders? In W7, 
> for example, this type of behaviour can be associated with protected 
> system folders/files.

Yes and yes. FR4 is an old dos genealogy program (Family Roots version 4).
I'm the only person in the world still providing support for it, getting the
data into a format that can be imported to a windows genealogy program. No,
it doesn't protect, and I've deleted client subfolders before, which makes
the current behavior all the more puzzling.

Where I'm at now:

Safe mode and the read only part didn't do the trick, except temporarily. I
changed C:\Fr4 to C:\Fr4b. Then I made a new folder C:\FR4 (the r being
upper case) and dragged the things I need to keep into it. A reboot (last
night) showed only the items I want in C:\FR4, and just the subfolders I
don't want in C:\Fr4b. I couldn't do any more reboot testing last night, but
I had deleted the subfolders from C:\Fr4b, leaving it empty.

I only did one other thing before shutting down for the night, which I'll
explain in a minute. Then this morning, they are back again in C:\FR4. The
folder has to have that name, I can't use C:\FR4b, but even if I could, that
wouldn't solve the problem of C:\FR4 adding itself back in.

The one other thing is my nightly backup. I use SecondCopy to do "Exact
copy, source to destination, delete obsolete files from destination" and
these are the 3 "profiles" I use:
C:\Users\Kathryn\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook to
I:\Vistamydocs\OutlookMail C:\Users\Kathryn\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
to C:\Users\Kathryn\Documents\OutlookMail
C:\Users\Kathryn\Documents (& subdirectories) to I:\Vistamydocs

As you see, nothing to do with C:\FR4.

Anybody got any ideas why this is happening and how I get rid of the
subfolders I don't want?

Kathryn