Um yes it was not the correct way to uninstall LW & may cause problems trying to reinstall. By the sounds of it you're on dial up are you?
I'd suggest getting this "small" but very effective utility to help clean up your registry: http://www.ccleaner.com/ It runs fast so won't need to wait around too long for it to do its job. Do this before you reinstall LW. In fact, you may be better off using a different LW installer which doesn't actually install, you just unzip it & use: Download ‘Other’ version & simply unzip & use!
So hopefully after this your Shared folder will become free again. I'd reboot before trying again.

(BTW this is what "can" happen by uninstalling LW as you did: Errors due to mistakenly uninstalling LW using Add/Remove control panel - what to try now. Read from here onward!)

Well, I tried running that ccleaner program but it didn't work. I still can't delete that annoying shared folder. Also, I accidently cancelled downloading Java so it looks like I'm going to have to wait another 4 hours for that to get started. Man, this sucks!