There are several good and free programs out there that will allow you to right-click and easily encrypt a FILE on your computer, but not the entire contents of a folder.

TrueCrypt isn't quite as daunting as you might think, we use it all the time, but it also doesn't work in a folder sort of way, it would give you a new drive letter (ie: D: drive) and everything you drop in there would be encrypted.

Two things I can think of, although I'd rather go the TrueCrypt route instead, but to put your options out there:

You can install WINRAR or WINZIP, both have options to "password protect" an archive and you could right-click a folder and "compress" the folder contents into a single password-protected file. Unfortunately, when you want to get back into the folder you would have to right-click and "decompress" the folder again after entering your password. Not a biggie for a couple of documents or something, but a big pain if you have a folder filled with powerpoints or something.

You could also use one of the above compression programs to get your folder into a single file and use one of the freeware (I can dig up names if you need it) programs to right-click and encrypt the file. This isn't doing much more than just complicating the process a bit, and using better encryption.

I know you aren't excited about using TrueCrypt, but I'd be (as I'm sure others here would be) willing to walk you through setting it up. Once installed you can just have a little icon on your desktop and when you double-click on it you get a "password" prompt and after entering your password, you have a new drive letter and anything you drop in there is encrypted and you don't have to think about it.

I know what you are trying to achieve and you would think it would be simple but unfortunately there isn't anything out there that can do that, even Microsoft's solution is easily breakable or can be opened to your machine's administrator.

--Doug