Vista - Administrator troubles

I've seen a bunch of stuff about the security measures in Vista about access to things, specifically a long back and forth between someone and (I think) Jimmy Bush here in this site. I have a situation where I am the only user, and an administrator, and I cannot access some folders in C, specifically any folder with an upward and right facing arrow. If I go in and delete the SYSTEM user from that folder and give me full rights, usually it'll work but sometimes I get a "Inherited user" message box saying that I first need to cancel on the parent folder. This even happens on the "My Documents" folder! I have a folder with my name with a bunch of automatic subfolders, one of which is Documents, but no My documents and no access to the my documents in Documents and settings. I tried opening Explorer as an Admin, I tried setting the adminstrator setting in regedit to yes - nothing! I don't think Bill meant to go THIS far.
I have a home premium 32 bit laptop.