I'm using the Novell NetWare client on my Windows XP installations with roaming profiles. Why do my users receive an error message every morning stating that their local profile is newer than the remote profile?

A. I recently experienced this problem with a client's systems. After investigating the cause, I discovered that every time that XP's System Restore creates a new restore point, it changes the modification date of the ntuser.dat files in the local profiles to match the time when the system created the restore point. After the user logs off for the day and the system creates a restore point, the System Restore process updates the user's local profile date. Then, when the user logs on the next day, the local profile date is newer than the date on the network share, which prompts the system to display the error message relating to the local profile being newer than the remote profile. You don't typically experience this problem with a standard Windows logon because the Graphical Identification and Authentication (GINA) .dll file takes into account the restore point creation and avoids the problem. However, because many third-party GINAs (including Novell) don't account for creating restore points, some clients can receive this error message. To resolve the problem, you must stop the System Restore process.

A. I recently experienced this problem with a client's systems. After investigating the cause, I discovered that every time that XP's System Restore creates a new restore point, it changes the modification date of the ntuser.dat files in the local profiles to match the time when the system created the restore point. After the user logs off for the day and the system creates a restore point, the System Restore process updates the user's local profile date. Then, when the user logs on the next day, the local profile date is newer than the date on the network share, which prompts the system to display the error message relating to the local profile being newer than the remote profile. You don't typically experience this problem with a standard Windows logon because the Graphical Identification and Authentication (GINA) .dll file takes into account the restore point creation and avoids the problem. However, because many third-party GINAs (including Novell) don't account for creating restore points, some clients can receive this error message. To resolve the problem, you must stop the System Restore process.