Symlinks on Vista

[Computer Guru]

One of the nifty "new" old technologies that Vista brings to the table that haven't been hyped too much is symlinks.

Vista does have several exciting features to blog home about - one of which is the much requested “Symlinks” feature. It’s been in practically every other operating system for the past decade+ and is one of the most essential time-saving devices ever to be implemented.

It’s called mklink (in keeping with the mkdir nomenclature obviously), and it works just as well.

Article: Vista Gets It: Symlinks at Last!

Source: NeoSmart Technologies

[Lemonzest]

been in NTFS since windows 2K (see hardlinks) big whoop

[Andareed]

Hardlinks don't work across volumes or on directories. There's also junction points, which are like symlinks but only work on directories.

[Computer Guru]

been in NTFS since windows 2K (see hardlinks) big whoop

Someone needs to read up on Symlinks.

There's a reason why this is a big deal. Symlinks are a very flexible system, especially when it comes to cross-referencing and simultaneous uses.

[MrFusion]

Please pardon my ignorance, but I can't think of many uses for Symlinks (I've just read the entry in Wikipedia). :blink:

Any example scenarios? :)

[LightIdea]

Well in unix/linux a symlink comes in handy.

I have a library called

library.so.2

but the program needs the library called library.so.1

I symlink library.so.2 to library.so.1 and works :)

Well thats the kinda thing I had to do to get VLC running :p

[jamend]

Can you make symlinks to Windows shares?

[MrFusion]

I symlink library.so.2 to library.so.1 and works :)

Well, couldn't you just rename the file?

It would be useful just if you need the same file on different places and/or names then. :yes:

[LightIdea]

Why would you want to rename it?... Other programs will need to use the library.so.2 file... and copying would waste precious HDD space :p