Setup a G5 running Panther with all the latest updates to find that when I mounted the NT server volumes (some specifically setup for Mac), all files without a dot prefix eg .jpg .doc, came up as Unix exe (Executable) file with an ugly little black icon. This was tragic for the customer's Quark files, as they had no prefix on them. However, if I saved a new Quark 4 or 6 file to the server, it was OK. The older G4 in the studio could still see the old files, but with anything newly saved from the G5, it could not load it.
Searched high and low on the net, spoke to a University administration technicians, spoke to some local Apple technicians, but could not find anything substancial. I did, however, come across some well set out internal support documentation, with screen shots (helpful) from Cambridge University. This lead me to the Directory Access application in the Utilities folder, where a number of network services are ticked by default, including SMB. By simply un-ticking SMB service and connecting via afp://server-Address, all files without a prefix on the windows servers magically returned to their previous state.
These types of major but simple changes, like the missing Key Caps program should be put in "Whats new?" in the Apple Help. This was an OS 9 to OS X migration client; there are still thousands out there, that may have chosen to stay on OS 9...
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040601221229716