Roaming profiles, folder redirection, and all that Jazz, without a server...

Okay, so I in a small chemistry research group at my
college. We have about 10 computers. About half of them
are connected to different laboratory equipment that
collects data. The other half are for writting reports and
the web...
My problem is that I want to impliment roaming desktops
and uniform computers. I have been trying to give everyone
a "U:" drive that is a personal dir. but sometimes instead
of give the user \\server\user\%username% it gives the
person \\server\user.
Did I mention we dont have any sort of domain server,
and we just use one of the computers to server out user
folders and profiles. so I shared the profiles dir on one
computer and told all the others to look there. for the
most part it works, that is until it breaks. some users
are then unable to change the wallpaper. (Im not saying it
doesn't follow them, because I know its not supposed to
(but it would sure be nice if someone could tell me how to
get it to) also outlook express gives a no identity error,
citrix wont work for crap, and various other things stop
working when a profile "breaks" and they did work on a
roaming basis at sometime before.
So I thought, maybe I can hack into the reg and use
folder redirection... for those who dont know, it works.
but the problem is I want to redirect all users profiles.
when I make the changes in the reg, it only changes for
the admin. strangly enough, the local admin profile now
roams, and the users reg is some how set from some other
file or an area in the reg I dont know about. any tips.
I have tried scripting, but I have been very
unsuccessful. bat files dont work to well for me either,
probably because Im not doing it right.
IF ANYONE, knows anything that could help, please let me
know.
thanks