Your network consists of a single Active Directory domain named contoso.com at the Windows Server 2003 functional level. You have a file server named Server1 that stores users' home folders and profiles. On Server1, you create a folder named D:\\data and share it as UserData. You also create a template user account named TemplateUser in Active Directory. You want each new user account that you create by copying TemplateUser to have a unique home folder stored in the UserData share. Which home folder path should you specify in the user account properties?

Introduction / Context:
In an Active Directory domain, you can configure user accounts with home folders stored on a file server. To simplify administration, it is common to use a variable in the home folder path so that Windows automatically creates a unique subfolder for each user based on their logon name. This question asks which path format you should use to point user home folders to a shared directory on Server1.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• The domain is contoso.com at the Windows Server 2003 functional level.
• Server1 has a folder D:\\data that is shared as UserData.
• You want each user to have a unique home folder inside that share.
• You are creating users by copying a template account (TemplateUser).
• You need to choose the correct syntax for the home folder path.

Concept / Approach:
When specifying a home folder in Active Directory Users and Computers, you typically enter a UNC path to a shared folder, not a local drive path. To create a unique folder per user, you use the %username% variable, which Windows replaces with the user's logon name when the folder is created. The correct pattern for this scenario is \\\\server1\\userdata\\%username%. Using %homedrive% or a local path like D:\\data\\%username% is not appropriate, because those forms either refer to local drives or the client's drive assignment, not the UNC share on the server.

Step-by-Step Solution:
1. Recognize that home folders should normally be stored on a network share so that they are centrally managed and backed up. 2. Identify the network share path for Server1: it is shared as UserData, so the UNC base path is \\\\server1\\userdata. 3. Decide how to make each user's folder unique. In Active Directory, the %username% environment variable is the standard way to do this. 4. Combine these into a single path: \\\\server1\\userdata\\%username%, which will result in folders like \\\\server1\\userdata\\Alice and \\\\server1\\userdata\\Bob. 5. Select the answer choice that exactly matches this pattern.

Verification / Alternative check:
If you configure a user's home folder as \\\\server1\\userdata\\%username%, the first time that user logs on, Windows will check for a folder with that name and create it if it does not exist, provided permissions allow. This behavior is documented and widely used in enterprise environments. By contrast, specifying D:\\data\\%username% would require local paths on every client, which is not what is intended here.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option a, D:\\data\\%homedrive%, incorrectly uses a local drive path and a variable that is not appropriate in this context. Option b, D:\\data\\%username%, again uses a local path rather than a UNC path, and applies to the server, not the client configuration in Active Directory. Option c, \\\\server1\\userdata\\%homedrive%, mixes a server UNC path with an irrelevant variable; %homedrive% is not used to generate folder names for home directories.

Common Pitfalls:
Administrators sometimes confuse where variables are expanded and mistakenly use local drive letters or unsupported variables in UNC paths. Another common mistake is forgetting to use a UNC path at all, which defeats the purpose of centralizing home folders. Remember that %username% is the standard variable for building user specific folder paths in domain user properties.

Final Answer:
You should specify the home folder path as \\\\server1\\userdata\\%username% so that each user gets a unique folder under the UserData share.