Symbolic links
 

Hi all,

I have several pc's in our LAN, under which W10 pro 64b. On all pc's I
installed an application to play music. The music files are located on
the server, but each application has its own data catalogue files,
located in C:\Program Files (x86)\xxxxxxxx\Userdata. It has always costs
me some effort to synchronize all the data files.
Recently I discovered the symbolic link. The data files are now stored
on the server in E:\Files\xxxxxxxx\Userdata. The directories in all
other pc's, C:\Program Files (x86)\xxxxxxxx\Userdata, are replaced by a
symbolic link to the Userdata directory on the server.
All applications still think they have their own directory, but they now
share a common directory on the server. All works well and I was
pleasantly surprised by this possibility. Never used it before.
It's easy to create symbolic links and junctions with the utility called
Link Shellextension. You can find it on
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks....html#download.

I thought this might be interesting to share with this group.

Fokke

Symbolic links
 

Fokke Nauta wrote:

... It's easy to create symbolic links and junctions with the utility
called Link Shellextension. You can find it on
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks....html#download.
...

See replies to your *multi*-posted copy over in the alt.windows7.general
newsgroup.

Despite not multi-posting over to the microsoft.public.windowsp.general,
yep, reparse points are available there, too. Reparse points (aka
junctions, symbolic links) are available *ONLY* when using NTFS, not
when using the FAT file system.

Symbolic links
 

On 5/21/2018 5:18 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Fokke Nauta wrote:

... It's easy to create symbolic links and junctions with the utility
called Link Shellextension. You can find it on
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks....html#download.
...

See replies to your *multi*-posted copy over in the alt.windows7.general
newsgroup.

Despite not multi-posting over to the microsoft.public.windowsp.general,
yep, reparse points are available there, too. Reparse points (aka
junctions, symbolic links) are available *ONLY* when using NTFS, not
when using the FAT file system.


I'd still like a shortcut that points to two or more places instead of
just one

guess I should make a powershell script ...

--
dale - http://www.dalekelly.org/
Not a professional opinion unless specified.

Symbolic links
 

dale wrote:

I'd still like a shortcut that points to two or more places instead of
just one

So, you mean a "Library"

Symbolic links
 

On 5/21/2018 6:28 AM, Fokke Nauta wrote:
Hi all,

I have several pc's in our LAN, under which W10 pro 64b. On all pc's I
installed an application to play music. The music files are located on
the server, but each application has its own data catalogue files,
located in C:\Program Files (x86)\xxxxxxxx\Userdata. It has always costs
me some effort to synchronize all the data files.
Recently I discovered the symbolic link. The data files are now stored
on the server in E:\Files\xxxxxxxx\Userdata. The directories in all
other pc's, C:\Program Files (x86)\xxxxxxxx\Userdata, are replaced by a
symbolic link to the Userdata directory on the server.
All applications still think they have their own directory, but they now
share a common directory on the server. All works well and I was
pleasantly surprised by this possibility. Never used it before.
It's easy to create symbolic links and junctions with the utility called
Link Shellextension. You can find it on
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks....html#download.

I thought this might be interesting to share with this group.

Fokke

Yes, been using them for quite some time now. I first discovered their
usefulness when I ran out of space in my C: drive for userdata, and then
I just moved all of that over to the D: drive, and relinked it back to
the C: drive again. It was as if nothing had changed.

However, Microsoft doesn't support the symbolic links as much as it
should. Because it came time to to upgrade from Windows 7 to 10, it
balked at all of that. I had to go through a long convoluted process to
change the Userdata officially from C: to D: and then it finally upgraded.

Yousuf Khan

Symbolic links
 

On 5/22/2018 2:28 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
dale wrote:

I'd still like a shortcut that points to two or more places instead of
just one

So, you mean a "Library"

if that is the term

--
dale - http://www.dalekelly.org/
Not a professional opinion unless specified.

Symbolic links
 

Cool - *nix has been doing that for 30 years.

Symbolic links
 

On 22/05/2018 19:20, ray carter wrote:
Cool - *nix has been doing that for 30 years.


Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

Fokke

Symbolic links
 

On 21/05/2018 23:18, VanguardLH wrote:
Fokke Nauta wrote:

... It's easy to create symbolic links and junctions with the utility
called Link Shellextension. You can find it on
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinks....html#download.
...

See replies to your *multi*-posted copy over in the alt.windows7.general
newsgroup.

Despite not multi-posting over to the microsoft.public.windowsp.general,

Sorry - wasn't aware of this group ...

yep, reparse points are available there, too. Reparse points (aka
junctions, symbolic links) are available *ONLY* when using NTFS, not
when using the FAT file system.

Symbolic links
 

On Wed, 23 May 2018 08:36:49 +0200, Fokke Nauta
wrote:

On 22/05/2018 19:20, ray carter wrote:
Cool - *nix has been doing that for 30 years.


Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

You wouldn't know it from using Ubuntu.

The underlying parts might be superior (especially the filesystems and
how they store data on a drive) but their software selections and
reliability are not much better. The support system (fellow users
unless you bought the Linux distribution from a company like Redhat)
is also worse.

Symbolic links
 

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

Cool - *nix has been doing that for 30 years.

Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

You wouldn't know it from using Ubuntu.

The underlying parts might be superior (especially the filesystems and
how they store data on a drive) but their software selections and
reliability are not much better. The support system (fellow users
unless you bought the Linux distribution from a company like Redhat)
is also worse.

yep.

linux is great for servers or embedded devices, but for the desktop,
it's awful. the software selection is very limited and the quality of
what does exist is generally quite poor.

Symbolic links
 

Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Wed, 23 May 2018 08:36:49 +0200, Fokke Nauta
wrote:

On 22/05/2018 19:20, ray carter wrote:
Cool - *nix has been doing that for 30 years.


Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

You wouldn't know it from using Ubuntu.

The underlying parts might be superior (especially the filesystems and
how they store data on a drive) but their software selections and
reliability are not much better. The support system (fellow users
unless you bought the Linux distribution from a company like Redhat)
is also worse.

Where does one get tech support for Windows then? Given we're all here the
support system is identical despite the fact we've all paid Microsoft for
their software...

Symbolic links
 

In article , Chris
wrote:

Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

You wouldn't know it from using Ubuntu.

The underlying parts might be superior (especially the filesystems and
how they store data on a drive) but their software selections and
reliability are not much better. The support system (fellow users
unless you bought the Linux distribution from a company like Redhat)
is also worse.

Where does one get tech support for Windows then? Given we're all here the
support system is identical despite the fact we've all paid Microsoft for
their software...

a microsoft store is one of the better options.
where are the linux stores?

Symbolic links
 

nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

You wouldn't know it from using Ubuntu.

The underlying parts might be superior (especially the filesystems and
how they store data on a drive) but their software selections and
reliability are not much better. The support system (fellow users
unless you bought the Linux distribution from a company like Redhat)
is also worse.

Where does one get tech support for Windows then? Given we're all here the
support system is identical despite the fact we've all paid Microsoft for
their software...

a microsoft store is one of the better options.

This is probably a US thing. In our country - The Netherlands - the
Microsoft Store is a *web*shop, not a physical store with humans. I
don't think it's any different in the rest of Europe/the EU. I have
never seen an ad for a (physical) Microsoft store (in contrast to f.e.
Apple).

A little Google search indicates that there are some physical
Microsoft stores in the US.

where are the linux stores?

Well, for now probably more than Microsoft stores! :-) I.e. a few is
more than zero.

But coming back to support, the big difference is how you're treated.
With Linux, you get your head bitten off and get no solution. With
Microsoft/Windows, you get treated politely and get no solution!

Symbolic links
 

nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

Yes, unix and linuxes are far superior to Windows.

You wouldn't know it from using Ubuntu.

The underlying parts might be superior (especially the filesystems and
how they store data on a drive) but their software selections and
reliability are not much better. The support system (fellow users
unless you bought the Linux distribution from a company like Redhat)
is also worse.

Where does one get tech support for Windows then? Given we're all here the
support system is identical despite the fact we've all paid Microsoft for
their software...

a microsoft store is one of the better options.

Never heard of such a thing.