Logging in as user not root

When logging in to a server that has /home/users mounted from another server, I get "Please contact your system administrator to resolve the following problem: Could not resolve the address "xml:readwrite:/home/users/rita.gconf" in the configuration file "etc/gconf/2/path": Failed: Could not make directory 'home/users/rita/.gconf': Permission denied. Also when at first I try to login, it says that the settings are being used in another session. Would I like to logout or continue? I choose to continue and get the above error.