Vista's Junctions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robert Morley
  • Start date Start date
R

Robert Morley

Okay, so I'm finally getting around to really exploring Vista for the first
time, and I found a bunch of hidden junction folders that, at first glance,
appeared not to be working. Of course, I later realized that there was a
Deny permission issue going on, and after Googling it, I discovered that
that was by design. "Why deny folder browsing only?" I won't ask, but fine,
it's by design. :)

I suspect that early on, I might have deleted one or two of these apparently
non-functioning junctions. Is there a way to get Vista to re-create the
default junctions? Or do I even need to...will it do so automatically when
an older app tries to use them?


Thanks,
Rob
 
Junctions are used by Vista to re-direct references to folders in older
windows versions of windows such as Windows XP's "Documents and Settings" to
the appropriate folder in vista. You may see junctions from a command window
with "dir %userprofile% /ad Junctions, like many other things that belong
to Vista, are best left alone. A junction is a shortcut. However, according
to the documentation I have, deleting a shortcut just deletes the pointer,
not the pointee but deleting a junction also deletes the pointee! I have
never played with this and I'm not about to find out about it the hard way.

Tyro
 
do a system restore..

to a time before you deleted those...

many xp era programs will need them to install
 
Junctions are used by Vista to re-direct references to folders in older
windows versions of windows such as Windows XP's "Documents and Settings" to
the appropriate folder in vista. You may see junctions from a command window
with "dir %userprofile% /ad Junctions, like many other things that belong
to Vista, are best left alone. A junction is a shortcut. However, according
to the documentation I have, deleting a shortcut just deletes the pointer,
not the pointee but deleting a junction also deletes the pointee! I have
never played with this and I'm not about to find out about it the hard way.
Click to expand...
on vista one need to distinguish

for folders
between explorer shortcuts ( *.lnk )
junctions ( see mklink /J )
and folder symlinks ( see mklink /D )

for files
between explorer shortcuts ( *.lnk )
symlinks ( softlinks) see mklink )
and hardlinks ( see mklink /H )
 
?

Tyro

Poutnik said:
on vista one need to distinguish

for folders
between explorer shortcuts ( *.lnk )
junctions ( see mklink /J )
and folder symlinks ( see mklink /D )

for files
between explorer shortcuts ( *.lnk )
symlinks ( softlinks) see mklink )
and hardlinks ( see mklink /H )
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, Tyro, I knew what they were and how they worked, I just figured the
junctions I saw were "broken" until I really paid attention to the fact that
it was a security message I was seeing, not a "not found" message.

It's a moot point now in any event, cuz it never occurred to me to check my
scanner for Vista compatibility, so shortly after installing Vista, I ended
up ripping it out to install a dual boot of XP/Vista, thus re-instating any
junctions I may have deleted.

This time, I won't make the same mistake...though I may go around and remove
those silly "Deny" permission attributes...they're just annoying!



Rob
 
That might've worked, had I not temporarily turned off System Restore.
<blush> It made sense to me at the time! :)

As I said in my other message, though, it's a moot point now, so no worries.
Thanks for the idea, though.


Rob
 
You mention in another message that you are dual-booting now. WinXP &
Vista.

You might already know about a System Restore quirk when setup to dual-boot.
Your System Restore points will constantly be erased, as you boot between XP
and Vista. Now that I have XP upgraded to -SP_3 service pack, my restore
points "hold" under that OS. Vista's System Restore points still get wiped
out if I boot into XP, then back into Vista.

Thought you should know.

NetLink
 
Back
Top