I create a directory, then publish to it. After I apply a user/password (through cpanel), I cannot access it - keeps asking for userid/password, and doesn't accept them.
This information relates to the Linux servers. On Windows servers your milage may vary.
On Linux servers, password-protecting a folder in cPanel works properly and does not bother the FrontPage extensions. FrontPage knows nothing about the password protection.
The password protection username & password are used for web browsing access to the folder, not for FrontPage publishing. In FrontPage, continue to publish using the original username & password.
When hyperlinking to a password protected folder name, use a trailing slash after the folder name, i.e the relative link to the "secret" folder would be secret/ with the trailing slash.
The trailing slash is not used when linking to a specific file, i.e. secret/index.html.