Symbolic Links in Windows 7
I am darn new to sym links... I (sort of) understand how and what and why, but that raised a question: In Windows 7, are the "pointers" from the older folder names (Like Documents and Settings) actually SymLinks, as opposed to shortcuts? Regards, Chuck Billow
July 11th, 2009 5:01am

Chuck - Symbolic links in this regard are used to redirect trafffic. It's kinda like a change of address card you file with the Post Office when you move. They're designed to help apps find their way around the new directory structures. If Program A is looking for say, My Documents - and it's expecting to find them in C:\Documents and Settings\{user ID}\My Documents - it redirects the flow to the appropriate folder - in this case C:\Users\{user ID}\My Documents. These links aren't shortcuts in the classic sense - they don't launch apps or documents. They're more like an environmental variable like %Windir% which usually equates to C:\Windows or %Sysdir% which is another way of saying C:\Windows\System32 - except that it's a link you find on your hard drive and it can't be moved, edited, etc...
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July 11th, 2009 6:03am

Wolfie likes to explain things in a non-technical manner. I like more technical explanations. Just preference, I suppose. I would say a Symbolic Link is a duplicatename-tag entry for a file or folder. It points at the same content as the original name-tag. That way, the originaldata does not need to be duplicated in order to make the same file appear in two different places.Maybe 20 years ago, having two name-tags pointing at the one-and-same data would have beena filesystem error that you'd fix with Norton Utilities. But it proves to be handy if it's done on purpose. That's what's being done here.If you like exploring, you can see the various Junctions and Symlinks on your drive. To do so, open Command Prompt. Then use the CD pathname(Change Directory)to maneuver into a particular folder. Then type DIR /ALto show afiltered directory of all the symbolic linksthat folder contains. For example, type CD \USERS then DIR /AL. To see what's inyour profile, CD \USERS\yourprofile. Etc. egads - Well... I do like to keep it simple. Considering I don't know my audience nor their level of technical expertise, it only makes sense to explain it so anyone can comprehend what I'm talking about - from a novice to those with a much deeper understanding of the subject.
July 11th, 2009 11:44am

Maybe it would be helpful to discuss what a ShortCut actually is. Then the difference from Symbolic Links will become clearer.First, consider an .MPG file. It contains music data. The ".mpg" extension specifies that data should be interpreted as music. Similarly, a .TXT file contains data from an editor. The ".txt" extension again specifies its data should be interpreted as text.A ShortCut is a file with .LNK extension. The data in the .LNK file is actually a full pathname to a file or folder. That's basically all it is - it just contains the nameof some other file or folder. You can actually make a shortcut to another shortcut, and daisy-chain it out many levels. Eventually, they all point at some original file/folder of interest. You really cannot tell by looking at a ShortCut icon if it points at the suggested file, or at another ShortCut to that file. You probably have had a ShortCut become "dead" at some time, and wondered why. Probably, it was a shortcut to a shortcut to a file, and the middle shortcut was later deleted. Ever have that happen? That's why. egads - Er.. An MPG file is actually a movie file that has video and audio encoded in a specific way - you must be thinking of an MP3 file - which is basically just the audio portion of an MPG file. Specifically MPEG 1, Layer 3 - hence the name MP3... But your explanation of a LNK file is pretty darn good.
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July 11th, 2009 11:48am

Don't forget that ShortCuts have to be understood by programs. Windows Explorer understands them and maybe some applications. Another words, you may try to open a file (actually a shortcut) and it would fail because the program just sees shortcut.lnk it does not understand that it is pointing to something. A link is done at the file system level. So the link is transparent to the application... All applications work with hard or symlinks! It could be a folder link or directly to a file. Very few programs work with ShortCuts. Also, these links work with Windows XP and up! Granted you need a third party program to create the link in XP, but once it is created, the file system understands and so do ALL applications.
July 22nd, 2010 8:46pm

S, at least it seems, that sym links are something that would only be needed to: allow for different ways people say (direct) the same thing (file/path/folder), and would need to be understood (dir /AL) but not directly used by the end-user? ANd, I noticed (dir /AL) that, for instance, My Documents [C:\Users\CWBillow\Documents] is one example. No then I don't / do need the whole path when I refer to this? Or could I say, for instance copy *.* "My Documents"? Regards, Chuck
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July 23rd, 2010 7:27pm

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