Does anyone know how to password protect files and then save them to a cd so that when the cd is put in you have to ebter the password to open them?

Putting the files into a zip file and password protecting the zip file is the only way I know of. Here is a good article on how to do that: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article...,110663,00.asp

You could probably get a software package to do what you need, but I've never used anything like this as the zip file technique has always worked for my needs.

It depends on the sort of protection you need. ZIP Passwords can usually be cracked by someone who knows what they're doing. There are a number of encryption prgrams you can use, but whatever you use you will need to distribute the encryption/decryption program along with the files, or let the receiver know where to obtain the program, as there is no native way to password protect a single file or folder in Windows (only NT Security and NTFS Permissions and/or EFS (Encrypted File System) all of which are tied in to the OS and won't work on a CD).
If you're going for strong encryption, make sure you use a strong pasword (a combination of letters, numbers and symbols) otherwise it makes the encryption absolutely useless.

You can use a trial version of xice encryption desktop (http://www.xice.net) to do it. If you'll be needing to access them longer than 45-days you'll have to get the full version, but if not you can pretty much do it for free. It not only password protects them, but performs rather strong encryption on them as well.