How to Setup Roaming Profiles in Windows 2000/2003 Server - Networking Computer Tips

Profiles are used in Windows to store user specific settings such as display settings, Internet Explorer favorites, installed printers and user documents. When you log into your computer with your name and password Windows will load your profile so it's everything is the same as how you left it last time you logged on. You may have noticed that if you log onto a different computer that you have never logged onto before you will get a generic configuration and have to customize all your settings to match the way you like them.

If you need your users to have their profile stay with them when logging on to a different workstation you can setup roaming profiles that will follow them wherever they go. This way your users will have the same desktop configuration no matter what computer they log in to making it easier for them to get their work done.

To setup roaming profiles in Windows, first log onto your server and open Active Directory users and Computers. Right click on a user; choose properties and the click the profiles tab. In the profile box type the UNC path of the shared folder you made on the server. For example you would type:

\\servername\profiles\%username%

Where servername is the name of your server and the profiles folder is on the root of the C drive. Do not type in the users name at the end but make sure it says %username% like in the example.

Make sure you have created this profiles folder and shared it with the same name as the folder. You can leave the share permissions wide open if you want because the %username% will create the users profile with permissions that grant only the user the right to view the contents.

The next time the user logs in, the users local profile will be copied to the new profiles folder on the server creating a new folder with the users name and permissions set up so that only the user can access it.

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