I am in the process of transferring software from one hard drive to another. Copying i.e. dragging the icon from one menue to anotheris no problem.Erasing the software from the copied-off hard drive becomes a problem. There are files that are file protected and don't want to be erased. A arning sign shows-up write protected.How do I remove the write protection so that I am able to erase the software?

Do you want to erase the hard drive completely? Or just the software?

If you want to erase the "copied-off" hard drive completely, just format it.

As a side note, from your question, transferring software from one hard drive to another is not as simple as dragging the icon. Most software need to be installed, which means the program, applications, libraries, initialization files, etc. are located in certain folders on your windows installation, and when the program can't find a file at the expected location, it simply will not work.

Normally a "write-protected" file is not really write protected, it means that file is in use. Try booting into safe mode and then deleting it.