Access is denied error, when I mklink on Windows 7

Question

My home directory is c:\Users\phi as a user phi, and I made a directory at c:\Users\abc. I need to symbolic link from c:\Users\phi\hello to c:\Users\abc\hello.

I run the following command

mklink c:\Users\abc\hello c:\Users\phi\hello

But I get the Access is denied error. User phi is Administrator, so I have no problem writing files in c:\Users\abc.

Why is this? How to mklink?

Answer 1

Note that the same error will be presented when you try to create junctions on mapped drives. I was pulling my hair out on this until I came across the examples on this page on MSDN Hard Links and Junctions.

Short answer: you can only use mklink on local volumes.

Answer 2

I found answer at this site. In short, I should have run cmd.exe as Administrator.

Answer 3

I was getting this because I accidentally ran mklink /D against a file. The link wasn't showing in explorer but it did in Windows Explorer. Using the Command Prompt I deleted the original invalid directory link and then recreated it without the /D option.

By the way, I was getting the "Access is denied" error even though I was running cmd.exe as an administrator.

Answer 4

Apart from running mklink as Administrator you also should make sure that you have enough permissions to the destination folder you are linking to.

Answer 5

This might sound weird, but check that the file or folder doesn't already exist that you are trying to create. Sometimes it's easy to overlook in the cmd prompt.

Answer 6

For directories you have to do:

mklink /D c:\Users\abc\hello c:\Users\phi\hello