I rarely use IK so the fact that it is on by default for the legs is a real annoyance for me. I wanted to create a new base Victoria 4.2.cr2 with IK turned off, and I figured that would be easy enough to do by just loading Vickie, turning off IK, and saving her back, but nope. IK gets turned on again. What's odd is when I open up the cr2 file of the original Vickie 4.2, it looks like IK should be turned off:

    inkyChain     LeftLeg  
        {
        off
        name LeftLeg
        addLink lThigh:1
        addLink lShin:1
        goal lFoot:1
        linkWeight 0 1
        linkWeight 1 0.2
        }

Somehow "off" gets set to "on" at some point.

What's especially odd is that if you save a character with some additional conforming item like hair, the IK "off" setting will "stick", but if it's just Vickie itself, it goes back to "on". 

So what's going on here, and how do I create a Vickie with IK permanently turned off?

Try to zero out the figure completely.
Then remove IK on both legs.
The gogo figure=> memorise figure
Then save to the library.

Nope, she still comes back with leg IK on.

stick one of the IK_off scripts in the scripts menu and at least its a one click fix. You can even edit the cr2 and get it to call the script when loaded.

Poser 9/PP2012 & Poser 10/PP2014 will save back to the library with IK off and will not default to on afterwards.  Sounds like it's time to upgrade.

I've never experienced this, even with Poser 7. I might be doing it differently though; I loaded a V4, turned off IK, added the Morphs++ then saved her as a different figure (V4 Morphs++). If I load original figure (V4) she has the IK; if I load V4Morphs++ she doesn't have IK.

Maybe try saving under another name (like V4 noIK).