Windows 7 & Vista Symbolic Link
Windows 7 and Windows Vista support symbolic links for both files and directories with the command line utility mklink. Unlike junction points, a symbolic link can also point to a file or remote Server Message Block (SMB) network path. Additionally, the NTFS symbolic link implementation provides full support for cross-filesystem links. However, the functionality enabling cross-host symbolic links requires that the remote system also support them, which effectively limits their support to Windows Vista and later Windows operating systems.
Symbolic links are designed to aid in migration and application compatibility with POSIX operating systems. Microsoft aimed for Vista's symbolic links to "function just like UNIX links". However, the implementation varies from Unix symbolic links in several ways. For example, Vista users must manually indicate when creating a symbolic link whether it is a file or a directory. Vista has a limit of 31 symbolic links in a single path. Only users with the new Create Symbolic Link privilege, which only administrators have by default, can create symbolic links. If this is not the desired behavior, it must be changed in the Local Security Policy management console.
In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, when the working directory path ends with a symbolic link, the current parent path reference, .., will refer to the parent directory of the symbolic link rather than that of its target. This behaviour is also found in at least some POSIX systems, including Linux.
A third-party driver is available to enable symbolic links on Windows XP.
Read more about this topic: Softlink, Microsoft Windows
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