userinit and nddeagent under NT4

[Gerald Carter]

I am having a problem with NT4SP3 clients in a Samba PDC 
running code from late August. 

The user are configured with roaming profiles and 
login scripts as you would expect.  The only problem 
seems to be that sometimes the NT client will attempt
to run the userinit and nddeagent.exe programs located
under

[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Winlogon]
"Userinit"="..."

The problem is that the NT client will look for them in 
the user's home directory.  The system cannot find the 
executable and the halts the login process.

In cae you did not know, userinit.exe is used to 
proces the registry and start the user's shell.  The 
Nddeagent.exe is used to start the NetDDE service on 
behalf of the user.  Both of these run in the user's 
context.

I'm not convinced that it is the samba code, because
I have some faculty machines that do not exhibit the 
behavior.  The problematic ones are in a lab which 
gets a lot of use.

Here's a snip of the packet trace so you'll see I'm 
not entirely crazy.  If anyone has any ideas of places 
to look, I would appreciate it.

jerry


virgo  keating  SMB  C tree connect & X, Share = \\LAB1\GUEST1  

  FRAME: Base frame properties
  ETHERNET: ETYPE = 0x0800 : Protocol = IP:  DOD Internet Protocol
  IP: ID = 0x1B18; Proto = TCP; Len: 105
  TCP: .AP..., len:   65, seq:  52723465-52723529, ...
  NBT: SS: Session Message, Len: 61
  SMB: C tree connect & X, Share = \\LAB1\GUEST1
      SMB: SMB Status = Error Success
          SMB: Error class = No Error
          SMB: Error code = No Error
      SMB: Header: PID = 0xCAFE TID = 0x0000 MID = 0x1D00 UID = 0x0064
          SMB: Tree ID      (TID) = 0 (0x0)
          SMB: Process ID   (PID) = 51966 (0xCAFE)
          SMB: User ID      (UID) = 100 (0x64)
          SMB: Multiplex ID (MID) = 7424 (0x1D00)
          SMB: Flags Summary = 24 (0x18)
      SMB: Command = C tree connect & X
      SMB: Command = No secondary command

keating  virgo  SMB  R tree connect & X, Type = A: 

  FRAME: Base frame properties
  ETHERNET: ETYPE = 0x0800 : Protocol = IP:  DOD Internet Protocol
  IP: ID = 0xC976; Proto = TCP; Len: 94
  TCP: .AP..., len:   54, seq:3322854297-3322854350, ...
  NBT: SS: Session Message, Len: 50
  SMB: R tree connect & X, Type = A:
      SMB: SMB Status = Error Success
          SMB: Error class = No Error
          SMB: Error code = No Error
      SMB: Header: PID = 0xCAFE TID = 0x0071 MID = 0x1D00 UID = 0x0064
          SMB: Tree ID      (TID) = 113 (0x71)
          SMB: Process ID   (PID) = 51966 (0xCAFE)
          SMB: User ID      (UID) = 100 (0x64)
          SMB: Multiplex ID (MID) = 7424 (0x1D00)
          SMB: Flags Summary = 136 (0x88)
      SMB: Command = C tree connect & X
      SMB: Command = No secondary command

virgo keating SMB  C get attributes, File = \nddeagnt.exe 

  FRAME: Base frame properties
  ETHERNET: ETYPE = 0x0800 : Protocol = IP:  DOD Internet Protocol
  IP: ID = 0x1D18; Proto = TCP; Len: 94
  TCP: .AP..., len:   54, seq:  52723530-52723583, ...
  NBT: SS: Session Message, Len: 50
  SMB: C get attributes, File = \nddeagnt.exe
      SMB: SMB Status = Error Success
          SMB: Error class = No Error
          SMB: Error code = No Error
      SMB: Header: PID = 0xCAFE TID = 0x0071 MID = 0x1D40 UID = 0x0064
          SMB: Tree ID      (TID) = 113 (0x71)
          SMB: Process ID   (PID) = 51966 (0xCAFE)
          SMB: User ID      (UID) = 100 (0x64)
          SMB: Multiplex ID (MID) = 7488 (0x1D40)
          SMB: Flags Summary = 24 (0x18)
      SMB: Command = C get attributes
          SMB: Word count = 0
          SMB: Byte count = 15
          SMB: Byte parameters
          SMB: File name = \nddeagnt.exe

keating virgo  SMB  R get attributes - DOS Error, (2) FILE_NOT_FOUND

  FRAME: Base frame properties
  ETHERNET: ETYPE = 0x0800 : Protocol = IP:  DOD Internet Protocol
  IP: ID = 0xC978; Proto = TCP; Len: 79
  TCP: .AP..., len:   39, seq:3322854351-3322854389, 
  NBT: SS: Session Message, Len: 35
  SMB: R get attributes - DOS Error, (2) FILE_NOT_FOUND
      SMB: SMB Status = DOS Error, (2) FILE_NOT_FOUND
          SMB: Error class = DOS Error
          SMB: DOS error code = FILE_NOT_FOUND
      SMB: Header: PID = 0xCAFE TID = 0x0071 MID = 0x1D40 UID = 0x0064
          SMB: Tree ID      (TID) = 113 (0x71)
          SMB: Process ID   (PID) = 51966 (0xCAFE)
          SMB: User ID      (UID) = 100 (0x64)
          SMB: Multiplex ID (MID) = 7488 (0x1D40)
          SMB: Flags Summary = 136 (0x88)
          SMB: flags2 Summary = 1 (0x1)
      SMB: Command = C get attributes



________________________________________________________________________
                            Gerald ( Jerry ) Carter	
Engineering Network Services                           Auburn University 
jerry at eng.auburn.edu             http://www.eng.auburn.edu/users/cartegw

       "...a hundred billion castaways looking for a home."
                                  - Sting "Message in a Bottle" ( 1979 )