Regarding the read only:
I went to my "skins" directory, hit properties, and it has that "partial checkbox" (solid green, meaning some things apply to this, some don't) under "read only"....
I go into the directory, select all, nothing read-only. I select just the files (not directories) and hit properties, they're all NOT read only.
I select a sub folder and check ITS properties, it has the same solid green box, but the files under it were NOT read only. Note this is a directory I created for my skin creation work, I use it, and I did not set it to "read only".
The directories are somehow being read as read-only in some way, but I don't know which. I selected the overall skins directory, toggled the read only until it was blank, and applied that to all sub folders when it asked me what to do with multiple files.
Should solve the problem, will log in tonight and see.