Roaming User Profiles in Mixed Environments Roaming users move between different computers in a mixed network environment. | Roaming User Profiles in Mixed Environments Roaming users move between different computers in a mixed network environment. To achieve this you will need to create roaming user profiles and then enable and configure profile information for each of the roaming users in your organization. When you enable roaming and specify a network share for roaming files some files and folders automatically roam with the users. This makes the user files available to roaming users regardless of the client computer from which the user logs on to the domain. Creating and enabling a roaming user profile is a two-step procedure 1. Create and configure a test user profile. 2. Copy the test user profile to a network server. Note Before enabling roaming user profiles it is recommended that you consider the important point of application compatibility. The underlying reason is straightforward although strangely enough overlooked. The problem is that some new features and functionality available in newer versions of applications might be unavailable to users who have earlier versions of the same applications. This of course becomes a source of confusion in networks that use a mix of different versions of the same application. One such example is Microsoft Outlook 2002 since some of its features are unavailable to the users of Outlook 2000. Therefore if you are using Microsoft Outlook as a mail client it is recommended that you ensure that the same version of the application is used in a single area such as a domain or at least perform a centralized upgrade. To create a test profile for a roaming user on a client computer running Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 follow these steps 1. Log on as Administrator open the Administrative Tools applet and click the Computer Management icon. 2. In the console tree expand Local Users and Groups right-click Users and select the New User command from the right-click menu. 3. When the New User window opens Fig. type in a name and .
