In detail: mklink and its options.

Question

I recently followed a small tutorial on howto install apache on a systems where you're not the admin. Basically, the original htdocs and conf folders were copied to a map I have ownership over, the original ones deleted and then symbolic links were created.

Now, I checked mklink /? and it gives several options.

1. Directory symbolic link
2. Hard Link
3. Directory junction

Microsoft technet doesn't offer much explanation as to what the last 2 options really do.

So I'm wondering if there's someone here who can tell me what these options do and perhaps give an example of a situation where this is really usefull.

Answer 1

See the documentation on MSDN on Hardlinks and Junctions. It says:

A hard link is the file system representation of a file by which more than one path references a single file in the same volume.

And:

A junction (also called a soft link) differs from a hard link in that the storage objects it references are separate directories, and a junction can link directories located on different local volumes on the same computer. Otherwise, junctions operate identically to hard links.