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Symbolic Links in Vista - Like a playlist, but for anything!

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Hirudin:
Symbolic Links are something that I just found out about, but so far I think they're awesome!

From what I can tell, they transparently link a virtual file or folder with a "real"(?) file or folder and that's about it.


A little backstory, I'll try to keep it short...
I've finally switched away from TheBat! (god that program was driving me nuts!) and have started using Thunderbird for my e-mailing. What I've done is created a TrueCrypt volume to store all my mail, call me paranoid... whatever. I mount the volume before I open Thunderbird, do my mailing as needed, close thunderbird, then unmount the TC volume. This way all my mail is encrypted while not in use and is safe from prying eyes (I don't want people reading my eBay bid confirmations and dirty joke forwards from my neighbor). But, I then realized that my profile isn't being encrypted, so my address book, account settings, and passwords were all either unencrypted, or didn't require a password to decrypt. That seemed a little dumb to me (what's the expression? Something along the lines of "don't guard the front door if the back door is open"...).

Along comes Symbolic Links to save the day:
All I gots ta do is find my profile folder (which in my case was in: C:\Users\<my account>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles), copy it to my encrypted virtual drive, then create a symbolic folder link with the same name as my profile folder and link it to the copied folder in my TC volume.
It probably took about 2 minutes once I started, and now my whole Thunderbird profile is encrypted and Thunderbird is none the wiser.

I could probably come up with at least 5 more very useful uses for these right off the top of my head (especially when combined with TrueCrypt volumes)!
What the heck, I'll give it a try:
1. Don't stop with e-mail, encrypt your Firefox profile too
2. Move your "Documents" folder off the C: drive to a flash drive, then encrypt it! Make a new "Documents" folder link in your user folder.
3. Hmmm... Use a laptop and a desktop? Link the Documents/e-mail/bookmarks of each one to the same actual files on a networked drive. No more syncing! You always access the current files/settings.
4. Instead of audio/video playlists, make huge/multiple lists of symbolic links, Winamp will think you're playing a single folder... encrypt them too! (just kidding) -- this would be great for home-made compilation CDs! Store them on your computer without taking up more room.
5. Keep one "dictionary" or "thesaurus" file across multiple programs (this would require some kind of standard dictionary format, which I doubt exists right now). No longer would you have to click "Add To Dictionary" on EVERY new program you type your last name into...

There's tons of possibilities! I must admit I actually had trouble coming up with 5 useful and unique ideas for my list though.

justice:
How do I make a symbolic link? edit: ah great when I answer my own question  8)
C:\>mklink
Creates a symbolic link.

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

        /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
                symbolic link.
        /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
        /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
        Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
        Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
                refers to.
--- End quote ---
https://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2006/04/15/576568.aspx

Would be good if there was an easier way, maybe via a context menu item or wizard hmm.

Hirudin:
Yeah... but it's so easy to make one (I mean, currently the hardest part is typing the path) I'm sure it would be super easy to make buttons and toolbars and stuff. I bet someone could make one for Directory Opus using only the button editor.
[edit]Took out stuff about DO and size reporting...[/edit]

MrCrispy:
And once again, Windows Explorer does not expose all the neat features that the OS and NTFS is capable of. Symlinks are new, but I'm talking about hard links, junctions, reparse points and all the other cool stuff thats been in NTFS since the beginning. This is why we needed all the sysinternal and resource kit cmd line tools. If only the Windows GUI had bothered, imagine how much nicer the user experience and tools could have been.

Hirudin:
...
hard links, junctions, reparse points
...
-MrCrispy (May 10, 2007, 04:10 AM)
--- End quote ---
What are all those? I've (now) seen them mentioned, but can you give us a dumbed-down explanation?

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