[Samba] Login problems in Windows XP

[Linus Lund]

First, I dont know if this issue is related to Samba or to Windows, but 
since all of our clients logon to a samba-served windowsdomain I suspect 
this problem at  least is related to samba.

Background
We have 80 clients serving around 1000 users (this is a computerroom for 
students). Clients are running a Windows XP SP1 fully pathed 
installation. All users log on to a samba domain (samba 3.0.13 running 
on a fully pathed Solaris 9 machine). All users use the same profile, a 
mandatory profile. Group policy settings are set so that the profile 
should be deleted upon logout. About 3 months ago login problems started 
to occur for some users, and over the last time the number of users 
experiencing problems has steadily increased.

Problem
When a problem-user tries to login Windows delivers a message telling 
the user that it can't remove a file from the (Internet Explorer's) 
Temporary Internet Cache because this filename is too long. Because of a 
group policy setting the user is not allowed to login if the profile 
cannot update it self, hence the users cannot use that computer. This 
shouldn't be happening cause 1) the profile is supposed to be deleted 
upon logout and 2) the profile is not supposed to be deleted upon 
logging in. The problem is bound to the local computer, but it seems 
that once a user get the problem on one computer it "spreads" to other 
computers. Deleting the entire local profile on one of the 
problem-computers resolves the problem (at least temporarily).

Around the time that the problem first turned up we did install some 
critical patches, and upgraded samba (from 3.0.5 if i remember 
correctly). I don't know if the problem is related to any of those 
actions though.

Have anyone else experienced similar problems?
How do I solve the problem? I could schedule removal of all local 
profiles on all computers, but that is not a solution to the problem but 
only to the symptoms.

Any help is much appreciated.

Regards
Linus