4 ms·

Strange they used shortcuts on Windows, as Windows has had links since Vista: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/ https:

by RajT88 3y ago

Strange they used shortcuts on Windows, as Windows has had links since Vista: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlin... Either this is because it's not at all well known, or because they think some users will be on XP. (Which would be strange)

skrebbel 3y ago
Maybe it was easier? Iirc at least in some recent ish Windows versions, by default you needed admin privileges to run mklink. Given that a shortcut is just a regular file, that solves a lot of problems.
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  That depends on your version of windows (newer versions are more relaxed on it). Also file links are 'weird' in windows. You have 3 types junction points, file links and directory links. Each one acting in its very weird odd way. Junction points are for local only directories. Files for files and directories can be either local dirs or remote SMB points. Junctions vs dir can be an interesting trade off on what you want it to do. With junciton being faster for many operations but local only. Also if the file is less than ~500 bytes there is no real gain as you will probably just consume MFT anyway either way.
  - 8372049 3y ago
    You need SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege to create symlinks in both Win 10 and Win 11. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/security-policy-settings/create-symbolic-links https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...
    - speed_spread 3y ago
      Its one of the things enabled by "dev mode" in the control panel.
      - sumtechguy 3y ago
        ah i probably enabled that...
wheybags 3y ago
The problem is the max path size. There was a similar problem on Linux, where you have a max number of symlinks you can follow before the system gives up. Macos works because finder resolves symlinks and opens the target directly.

by RajT88 3y ago

skrebbel 3y ago

Maybe it was easier? Iirc at least in some recent ish Windows versions, by default you needed admin privileges to run mklink. Given that a shortcut is just a regular file, that solves a lot of problems.

sumtechguy 3y ago
That depends on your version of windows (newer versions are more relaxed on it). Also file links are 'weird' in windows. You have 3 types junction points, file links and directory links. Each one acting in its very weird odd way. Junction points are for local only directories. Files for files and directories can be either local dirs or remote SMB points. Junctions vs dir can be an interesting trade off on what you want it to do. With junciton being faster for many operations but local only. Also if the file is less than ~500 bytes there is no real gain as you will probably just consume MFT anyway either way.
- 8372049 3y ago
  You need SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege to create symlinks in both Win 10 and Win 11. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/security-policy-settings/create-symbolic-links https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...
  - speed_spread 3y ago
    Its one of the things enabled by "dev mode" in the control panel.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      ah i probably enabled that...

wheybags 3y ago

The problem is the max path size. There was a similar problem on Linux, where you have a max number of symlinks you can follow before the system gives up. Macos works because finder resolves symlinks and opens the target directly.