ntbackup selections changed

One of our servers suddenly stopped doing its backup properly. When I watch the (scheduled) backup routine running the selection that it backs up is not the selection that is listed in the .bks file. I’m not sure what it *is* backing up as the (full) log file doesn’t tell me the details and the gui interface is not available for me to poke around on when the job is scheduled. Turns out that the @ in front of the backup selection (as per Microsoft’s XP backup article) did the trick. Why I should need one in Windows2000, when it’s not documented anywhere else that I can see, I don’t know. I’m just glad the backups are all working again in time for the Christmas break. Our mail server was also refusing to backup, but this was because there was more data on the disk than would fit on the tape drives. Swine consultants keep backing up their hard disks using ghost or even just an xcopy onto the server and taking it over the tape drive capacity.
No flames telling me to use BackupExec or any other third party software please, unless you are going to give me a cheque to buy the third party software at the same time.