[Samba] Windows XP and SAMBA: "file changed" popup

[Jochen Hebbrecht]

Following issue only occurs on a Windows XP system (it doesn't happen on
Windows 7)

I have Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick) server with samba 3.5.4. The server has a
samba share and another PC (which has Windows XP as operating system) is
connected to that share through a network drive. On the share, there are PHP
files which can be changed by a developer. The files are also available by
HTTP using an Apache HTTPD VirtualHost.

So, the developer has some PHP files open in PHPDesigner 7. He makes a
change and he wants to see his change in the browser (e.g.: Firefox). He
refreshes the page and he sees the result. Now, he returns to PHPDesigner
... but ... PHPDesigner is telling him: "This file has changed, do you want
to reload it?".

The problem is: the file hasn't been changed, but the access time of the
file has. I had a look at this issue and I noticed there's no creation date
on Unix level. So in Windows, creation date is access time ... which makes
Windows XP thinks the file has been changed as it was accessed ...

Any idea's how we can solve this?