Folder Redirection and User Profiles in the Windows operating system provide users with consistent user experience, regardless of where the user is logged on. Windows 7 introduces some new features – and it carried forward in 10/8 too.

Folder Redirection & User Profiles in Windows

These technologies, Folder Redirection and User Profiles are described in short below:

Folder Redirection: Windows 7 improves first-time Folder Redirection performance by optimizing the behavior between Folder Redirection and Offline Files. This reduces logon time over slow network connections because the operating system synchronizes redirected folder data in the background.

User Profiles: Windows 7 enables administrators to configure background uploading of roaming user profile registry data to a server while the user remains logged on to the computer. Windows 7 also changes how administrators customize default user profiles.

This document from Microsoft discusses the improvements to these technologies and how to customize default user profiles.

Visit Microsoft for full details.