…Overview…
 

Roaming profiles are profiles that are stored in a central location on the network. The idea being that a users configuration or profile (Desktop, printers etc) follows them around wherever he/she goes. If a user makes any changes to anything held in their profile when they logoff these changes are saved back to their profile on the network making it available for next logon. There are both advantages and disadvantages to roaming profiles:

Advantages

1.) The user has a familiar look and feel about their environment wherever they login.
2.) Application settings, printers etc all remain the same wherever they are.
3.) You can save all the romaing profiles of your company in one central location so it makes backing up easier.
4.) It takes very little administration to create a roaming profile.

Disadvantages

1.) Without any controls in place roaming profiles can grow to an unmanageable size.
2.) Profiles do have a tendency to get corrupt more often than local or mandatory profies which creates more administrative overhead.
3.) More network traffic is created by users logging on and off.
4.) Logons for users take a longer time than normal.

How to create and assign a Roaming profile

1.) Create and share a folder on the network with permissions for the relevant users. This is usually a directory called profiles with domain users or everyone having full control.
2.) Share this folder out to the relevant people. Again this is normally domain users or everyone but can be a specific group if you wish.
3.) Create a network share assigning the permissions of at least read and execute for all the users who may need access to this folder.
4.) Open up Active Directory Users and Computers, right click the user and select properties.
5.) Click the profile tab and fill in as below \\servername\sharename\username.
6.) That’s it, the profile will be created the next time the user logs on or off.

Terminal Services Profile

There is also a Terminal Services Profile which can be found in the terminal services tab of the users account in Active Directory. This is exactly the same as a roaming profile and created the same way except it only takes effect when a user logs on to a Terminal Services server.