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My objective here is to synchronize my emule credit file (application.dat?) by Dropbox. But the credit file is not inside the Dropbox directory (by default). So I want to make a hard link to get this objective done.

I know I can make a hard link by Perl in Windows. (I learnt Perl in Windows XP. Only hard link is valid in Windows XP.) But it sounds like overkilling to me to make that done by installing new software, as I expect I am not going to use Perl in the near future.

Any ideas? The simpler, the better.

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3 Answers 3

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You can use the mklink command like :

mklink /H <link> <target>

I guess that should work, but I don't know what would happen if you use eMule on the same time at two different locations regarding the syncing.

If you want to link to a directory instead of a file, use the following command:

mklink /J <link> <target>

Note: This will create a junction rather than a symlink. Junctions are for when the target and source are not on the same volume.

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    unfortunatly this doen't work with network volumes
    – Thariama
    Mar 10, 2014 at 14:04
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    @Thariama Hard links only works within the same disk. You can't hard link over the network
    – M'vy
    Mar 10, 2014 at 17:02
  • correct, that's what i thought
    – Thariama
    Mar 11, 2014 at 9:23
  • ...its what it means. "Hard links" refer to the same hard-drive location, over a network you are use different hard drives for each machine. Mar 20, 2014 at 22:41
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    @Hut8 - It is safe to say that mklink actually does work with Windows 7 given that the author specifically asked how to do this for Windows 7 then accepted the answer.The "applies to" information is not correct on that path. In order to support my statement CreateSymboicLink indicates the minimum supported client is Windows Vista and minimum supported server is Server 2008. If 36 people upvoted an answer for something that didn't apply to Windows 7 they should be ashamed of themselves( good thing it does).
    – Ramhound
    Oct 30, 2015 at 14:31
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Ways to make a hard link — not solely confined to Windows 7:

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  • mklink works on win7/cmd, but fsutil fails with permission denied. There is also junction command, that works well on XP and win7.
    – mosh
    May 24, 2017 at 7:41
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I find this shell extension really useful, no ads or anything, very light. I suppose it is third party software, but it integrates into windows, so it is as close as it gets to native support. I figured that was what you wanted anyway, a native feel, no frills. http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html#download

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  • Agreed, but it IS an extra program, though. Mar 23, 2016 at 23:25

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