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As Matthias had suggested, a complete shut-down and re-start of the Windows 7 operating system brought the functionality of the Function Key within MC back. The functionality seems to get lost during hibernation or stand-by of Windows. Seems to be a peculiarity of MC.

Pressing the F5 Function Key (Copy) does not work. Pressing F2, F6 and F7 will execute the proper command. In another File Commander (Turbonavigator), F5 is working properly. I don't remember having changed the MC configuration recently. I have assigned a button to F5 in the Button Panel and it is working on mouse click. Thank you for your attention.

That is to say, simply define a TC/VC container file as a Favorite within MC and then double-click that MC Favorite in order to mount the TC/VC container file as another drive?
But again, that TC/VC container file will not be protected against deletion ... Writing a long nestled hierarchy of folders into the existing Windows file system without additional file driver should do the job, something like:
Protected_Folder\Subfolder_1\Subfolder_2\Subfolder_3\Subfolder_4\etc\archive.rar
I guess that Kakasoft's Lockdir does such a job without instaling a FileSystem driver, simply by executing a script built into the exe.

There is a problem on Windows platforms that has not been addressed satisfactorily in my opinon: to hide the contents of folders from un-authorized view and change and -- most importantly -- to protect folders from accidental or willful deletion. Of course you can hide folders or assign permissions within the Windows file system, but that will not protect files and folders from outside intrusion. As far as I know, folders enrypted with Windows own Bitlocker cannot be decrypted, once the operating system has to be re-installed due to system failure. Could it be that MC's Virtual File System (registry, FTP, etc.) could offer a long sought solution?

Unfortunately, the in-built ZIP packer does not offer password protection. That would be good for a start. Of course, one might create an encrypted Truecrypt container and define it as a Favorite Folder within MC. But such an encrypted container (folder) would not be protected against accidental or willful deletion. The only solution that I have found so far is packing (and possibly encrypting) the contents of a folder in an archive file that is placed at the end of an hierarchically nested tree of subfolders. As a consequence, the packed archive cannot be deleted from within or without the Windows operating system. You will need a password to start the unpacking routine.

Is there another solution I am not ware of? Would it be possible to integrate such a packing routine into the MC virtual file system? How can I access a Truecrypt container from within MC if I define it as a Favorite. Any ideas are welcome.

SOLUTION FOUND! Re-starting MC did not help. Instead I re-started the Windows operating system. Among other changes to the Windows display, I had increased the text size throughout Windows. It seems that re-starting Windows once to get the changes effective was not enough. Another proof in favor of MC ... Thank you for your time and consideration. I'm sorry for having bothered you.

First of all, thank you very much to the intelligent programmer of this highly versatile program. MC fills almost all of my needs in daily work. Unfortunately, the display of the thumbnails in the thumbnails mode got corrupted overnight. Instead, black squares are shown. I can switch between the symbols view and the thumbnails view, but no thumbnails are shown. In the Windows Explorer and other image software like Irfanview Thumbnails, the thumbnails are correctly displayed. I changed some of the Windows 7 64-bit display styles before (like removing the mouse shadow trail etc.), but did not change the MC settings. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of customizing MC and hate to re-load the standard settings, because that would mean to start from the scratch again. Any idea?