Recently I noticed that throughout my directories, in each where there are both subdirectories and individual files, a new subdirectory has been created that contains all the individual files in that directory.

In each case, that new subdirectory is labeled "_vti_cnf"

I think this happened very recently.  The only new thing I have been doing lately is working in FrontPage.

This does not seem to have happened in program directories (but they are  on a different partition of the hard drive.

Does anyone know what these are and how they got created? Do they "really" exist" and does this mean that all files in them now exist as two copies?  If I delete them will I lose both copies of the files?

I made a "test" directory with subdirectory and another document, and it did not spontaneously make a new subdirectory as above.  I get the impression these new subdirectories were created at one time in response to something that was done, either by me accidentally or by some other agent.

Any help appreciated.