Altap Salamander Support Forums

Most likely this RFE already has been requested, but I haven't found a thread.

Please provide support for creating symlinks on NTFS volumes, similar to the mklink tool. Thanks in advance.

Is there no one else interested in such a feature?

I found it! Plugins > Automation > Make Link already does it.

To make symbolic link/hard link/junction you can use the "Make Link" script for the Automation plugin. The script is installed by default and you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it through the Plugins Manager.

Unfortunately, it does not work on XP (mklink seems not available there). Beside that the dialog looks somehow strange layed out.

mklink seems not available there

Correct.

Beside that the dialog looks somehow strange layed out

Wonder if that may not be theme or font size (scaling) related?
(Looks normal on my XP "classic".)


ln.exe or link.exe (found in gnuwin32, ...bin.zip) I would think (though not tested) would work.
You would have to adjust the .js script (certainly for the gnu version, possibly for the other).
(Don't know offhand if a Win7 mklink.exe runs on XP?)


Oh and Link Shell Extension (LSE) will give you a context menu option that should work from within Salamander.

Symlinks are not well supported under XP. According to the NTFS symlink Wikipedia article, symlinks were introduced with the NTFS revision shipped in Vista, so XP officially knows only junction points, which are a similar thing, but only for directories.

But, to keep things interesting, Windows XP's Explorer handles junction points really badly:

Wikipedia wrote:Deleting a junction point using Windows Explorer will delete the targeted files immediately if using shift-delete (Windows 2000/XP/2003). the command del myjunction should not be used – this will just delete all the files in the targeted directory. Deleting a junction point using Explorer is safe since Vista.

I remember I used symlinks even on WinXP, I used cmd commands, but did you try AS "run as administrator"?