How to Create Roaming Profile – Windows Server 2003

Roaming profiles users are able to get their desktop environment on every computer which is client of a domain controller. This involves 2 processes: Sharing a Folder and Configuring Domain Users Profile.

Create a Share a Folder

1. Log on to the domain controller as Admin.
2. Create a folder on drive C: or any available volume and name it Profiles.
3. Share the Profiles folder right-click on it and from the context menu select Properties.
4. On the Properties page go to Sharing tab and select Share this folder radio button then click on Permissions button.
5. Make sure that Everyone group is selected and under Permissions to Everyone, under Allow column check the checkbox Change option.
6. Click on Apply then Ok button on all windows to accept and confirm your settings.

Configuring Domain Users Profile.

1. Click on Start button and go to Administrative Tools.
2. From Administrative Tools sub-menu click on Active Directory Users and Computers.
3. When opened, from the left pane expand your domain (your domain.com in this case) and from the list select Users container.
4. On the right pane right click on the user name for which you want to configure roaming profile and select Properties.
5. In the Properties window go to Profile tab.
6. In the Profile path text box type In this example it would be 192.168.1.128ProfilesUSERNAME where 192.168.1.128 is the computer name, USERNAME will be replaced with the name of the user account.

Once done with the above configuration click on Ok button to accept and confirm the settings. Every time the user will use a domain client computer to log on his profile will be downloaded for this sub folder and will be saved back in this folder when the user will log off.

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