that's very odd. it's never happened to me and I use the "do not publish"
all the time as a personal tactic for managing customer's assets.
check and see under publish properties whether you've got "all pages" or
"changed pages" checked, although that shouldn't make a difference.
by what method are you publishing?
take a look at
www.jimcoaddins.com as I believe there's an enhancement to
the "do not publish" feature.
HTH
--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage
ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/