Make a hard link without extra programs in Windows 7

Question

My objective here is to synchronize my emule credit file (application.dat?) by Dropbox. But the credit file is not inside the Dropbox directory (by default). So I want to make a hard link to get this objective done.

I know I can make a hard link by Perl in Windows. (I learnt Perl in Windows XP. Only hard link is valid in Windows XP.) But it sounds like overkilling to me to make that done by installing new software, as I expect I am not going to use Perl in the near future.

Any ideas? The simpler, the better.

score 96 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 06 '17 at 23:38

96

You can use the mklink command like :

mklink /H <link> <target>

I guess that should work, but I don't know what would happen if you use eMule on the same time at two different locations regarding the syncing.

If you want to link to a directory instead of a file, use the following command:

mklink /J <link> <target>

Note: This will create a junction rather than a symlink. Junctions are for when the target and source are not on the same volume.

edited Feb 06 '17 at 23:38

music2myear

41,771

answered Mar 10 '11 at 13:13

M'vy

3,910
1
21
20

1

unfortunatly this doen't work with network volumes – Thariama Mar 10 '14 at 14:04
3

@Thariama Hard links only works within the same disk. You can't hard link over the network – M'vy Mar 10 '14 at 17:02
correct, that's what i thought – Thariama Mar 11 '14 at 09:23
...its what it means. "Hard links" refer to the same hard-drive location, over a network you are use different hard drives for each machine. – Ivan Castellanos Mar 20 '14 at 22:41
What about same Hard Drive but different partitions? – Kushal Jul 17 '14 at 06:04
Each partition has it's own file table. So it won't work. – M'vy Jul 17 '14 at 08:16
mklink keeps saying "access is denied" even from an elevated command prompt. – Mark Jeronimus Sep 08 '15 at 07:07
mklink doesn't exist on Windows 7 although it does on Vista and 8: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753194.aspx – Hut8 Sep 17 '15 at 17:38
mklink /H complained "access is denied", but mklink /J successfully created a Junction. That did the job for me! – Steve Pitchers Oct 23 '15 at 18:01
2

@Hut8 - It is safe to say that mklink actually does work with Windows 7 given that the author specifically asked how to do this for Windows 7 then accepted the answer.The "applies to" information is not correct on that path. In order to support my statement CreateSymboicLink indicates the minimum supported client is Windows Vista and minimum supported server is Server 2008. If 36 people upvoted an answer for something that didn't apply to Windows 7 they should be ashamed of themselves( good thing it does). – Ramhound Oct 30 '15 at 14:31
@Ramhound I'm on Windows 7 Enterprise now and mklink.exe is nowhere on here. How do I get it? – Hut8 Oct 30 '15 at 18:26
one thing to watch out for: mklink is built into cmd.exe, so it doesn't work from powershell. – craq Jul 24 '18 at 01:36

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 10 '11 at 14:30

Ways to make a hard link — not solely confined to Windows 7:

the ln command from Microsoft's own downloadable SFUA utility toolkit which runs on the Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications that comes in the box with Windows 7 Ultimate edition and Windows Server 2008 R2. (For Windows XP, one can download and install Services for UNIX version 3.5.)
```
ln original new
ln original1 original2 ... directory
```
JP Software's TCC/LE has a built-in MKLINK command and a built-in MKLNK command. The latter automatically chooses between hard and symbolic links and can use wildcards to make a lot of hard links all at once. It's syntax is also more like that of ln, which Linux and Unix people may be used to, than mklink's syntax is.
```
mklink /h new original
mklnk original new
mklnk *.txt directory
```
fsutil (using its hardlink option)
```
fsutil hardlink create new original
```
mklink
```
mklink /h new original
```
Using FAR, press Alt-F6

mklink works on win7/cmd, but fsutil fails with permission denied. There is also junction command, that works well on XP and win7. — mosh, May 24 '17 at 07:41

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 15 '14 at 02:17

5

I find this shell extension really useful, no ads or anything, very light. I suppose it is third party software, but it integrates into windows, so it is as close as it gets to native support. I figured that was what you wanted anyway, a native feel, no frills. http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html#download

answered Aug 15 '14 at 02:17

Motomotes

173

Agreed, but it IS an extra program, though. – Bigue Nique Mar 23 '16 at 23:25

Make a hard link without extra programs in Windows 7

3 Answers3

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