Where is home folder?

Hi all, Well I have gotten the MAC to authenicate to the AD server. I can login from a MAC and go to finder and see the server. Two things I'm not sure of 1- Is the server automatically mounted? When I go to finder and click on server it takes a few seconds to connect. The first time on each MAC I must enter the password again and check the box for remember this in key chain. Having a school of k thru 8th graders it would be nice that once they login they are not prompted w/ this question. Is there a way around this? 2- If I uncheck "force local home directory" (not in front of MAC, so may be off on text) when I login I think the MAC is trying to load a home folder on the Dock. However, I get a error message something like "can not find folder, does not exist or server is unavailable". Server is available, so I assume it's a permissions thing, or the folder does not exist. I'm not a admin, so I'm figuring things out as I go. I have inherited the Win2003 server. Where is the user's home folder defined? I thought it was under the profile tab in user properties on the 2003 server. However the server will not accept the \\server_name\home folder path format. It prompts me to use a drive letter etc. So if I enter the home directory as E:\students\jim, The MAC seems to map a folder called E:\ w/ a subfolder students & w/ a subfolder Jim off of the users local MAC home folder. So I guess I'm wondering where the mac gets the information about the location of the users home folder on the server? Can I have the MAC map a local home folder and a server located home folder? And to be greedy, map a shared folder located on the server? I hope this is clear...if not, please ask questions and I will do my best to clarify... School about to open soon, so I really need to make this happen.. Any help is appreciated....Thanks