Redirection or Exclude from Profile?

[TechSupp]

Having had a look at why some year groups are complaining of a slow logon (roaming profiles), I now see that its the Application Data folder thats the problem. We have My Documents and Desktop etc redirected so thay are not in the profile and hence slow the logon times. Now looking on the net two options seem to be available to improve the logon time, redirection of the Application data or exclude the folder from the profile. Any suggestions as to which would be the best and less troublesome. If it was folder exclusion what would I have to use as the folder path %user% etc (examples would be most welcome
Never done folder redirection so any hints tips would be helpfull.

[Geoff]

I suspect you'd be better off dumping roaming profiles and going the mandatory profile route.

[TechSupp]

Whats the benefit over roaming and is it easy to convert over to mandatory?
Just been reading a bit more on the subject and realise that I am using Mandatory profiles i.e. after a profile change etc we lock it off by changing it from a dat to a man extension. Still have the problem of reducing the size of the profile though. In the profile it seem its mainly the Microsoft section of the profile that is bigger than the others who don't have problems.