NTFS junction point – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NTFS junction point – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

An NTFS junction point (JP) is a feature of the NTFS file system version 3.0 or later. It is a type of NTFS reparse point. Junction Points can be used in a similar way to symbolic links — allowing the creation of a link to a folder that is, for most intents and purposes, the same as the folder itself. This has many benefits over a Windows shell shortcut (.lnk) file, such as allowing access to files within the folder via Windows Explorer, the Command Prompt, etc. Junction points can only link to directories, and moreover, local directories only; junction points to remote shares are unsupported.^[1] For linking to files, possible alternatives to junction points (aside from shortcuts) include hard links (which have the restriction that the file must belong to the same logical volume), and symbolic links (which are only included in Windows Vista and newer, but do work over network shares). The Windows 2000 and XP Resource Kits include a program called linkd to create junction points; a more powerful one named Junction was distributed by Sysinternals‘ Mark Russinovich.^[1]

While I’m still limited to using NTFS Junction Points (versus Symbolic Links, available in Windows Vista), I do really like the idea of having C:\Users\ link to C:\Documents and Settings\ (who the hell came up with that naming convention anyway?) – similar to how C:\Documents and Settings\ is a symbolic link to C:\Users\ in Windows Vista.

Luckily, there is a utility for just that purpose, available here: