On 2015.02.11 08:03, Andrew Lunn wrote: >> If I make a symlink on the NTFS drive using Linux, will that symlink >> work when I attach the NTFS drive to a Windows 7 machine? Do any of >> you know the answer? > > Sorry, no idea. > > One thing to remember here is, its not linux, cygwin, or windows which > is the key factor. It is NTFS. The file system needs to have the > concept of a symbolic link. The version of NTFS used in XP does not > have the concept. The .lnk files is a hack around the missing concept. > It seems like NTFS used in vista does have the concept. Hence it might > be possible to create them on the file system. Actually, Linux, Cygwin, and Windows will all handle symlinks on NTFS differently, unfortunately. It's been a while since I've used it, so I could be a bit off, but AFAIK, NTFS implementations outside of Windows are not very good and implement some of the more advanced features a bit hackishly. If that doesn't put you off the idea, consider that even native support on Windows for symlinks in NTFS is not very good: error codes are very wrong (try playing with the feature in Python or C or something and you'll get incorrect error codes returned by the OS when you try to do things like create a symlink where a file already exists), and the ability to use the feature at all in Windows requires a special privilege which is not given to standard user accounts (though it can be specifically and explicitly granted). And, to top it off, Cygwin did weird things when I had it use native symlinks instead of its own fake symlinks. My advice is to stay far, far away from symlinks on NTFS.