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

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.

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.

dale wrote:

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

So, you mean a "Library"

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.

dale wrote:

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

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/libraries-great-feature-windows-7

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

On Wed, 23 May 2018 12:41:15 -0400, nospam
wrote:

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.

I'm very fond of the operating system to tell you the truth.
Unfortunately, a lot of what I need to do in Linux can't be done not
because Linux itself is incapable, but because nobody produced the
software to do any of it. I need something which can mirror my desktop
to an AppleTV. I can use AirParrot in Windows or some scheme in Linux
which is not likely to work. I like playing games, but most of what I
like isn't available in Linux. I like to rip my CDs securely, but
Linux doesn't have software to do that anymore... etc.

If your needs are basic though, there's no doubt that it's way better
than Windows.

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...

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?