Here's one that's got me baffled. Win03 standard running as the only DC in the building. I've started running a scheduled NTbackup at 11pm every night of our data directories and system state. (local machine) I noticed in the application event viewer that the system could not access a GPO, and this happens every few minutes. Every time this happened, I found I couldn't access any shared drives or group policies. Also at this time, Task scheduler had disappeared as a shared resource. A few moments later everything was working again. Full access back. This happens from early evening, assumingly every night. As I've only just discovered the cause I don't know if it happens during the day (not that I've noticed) only on the run up to the NTbackup. I guess Task scheduler is doing something like polling the time??? but it's damm inconvenient and takes a long time. Also NTbackup knocks out my USB ISDN TA every time it runs (only just discovered the cause as I was dialled in when the back up started) and the only way to get it back is to reinstall the ISDN TA drivers. Any help or insight greatly appreciated. Damian