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.