How do you make a Win10 Quick Access link to a symlink without it translating it to the original directory?

Question

Scenario:

1. Create SymLink: C:\Data\workspaces --> C:\Users\****\Documents\workspaces
2. Navigate to C:\Data\Workspaces in explorer
3. Click and drag the the path from the address bar onto "Quick Access" in the navigation pane.

Expected Result:

• Clicking on the shortcut takes you to C:\Data\workspaces

Actual Result:

• Clicking on the shortcut takes you to C:\Users\****\Documents\workspaces

How do you make it so that the shortcut points to the correct path. (the SymLink)

Command Used to create the SymLink:

mklink /D C:\Data\workspaces C:\Users\****\Documents\workspaces

Updated with pictures:

Please note the workspaces symlink inside C:\Data:

When I double-click on the symlink it works correctly. (note the address bar.

When i pin it to the Quick access bar, however, it uses the address that the symlink points to and NOT the symlink address.

Answer 1

To prevent a symbolic link from being translated, you have to trick Windows by first pinning a regular folder to Quick Access, and then replacing it with a symbolic link.

mkdir symlink

then pin this to quick access using File explorer

rmdir symlink
mklink /d symlink "\\host\path\to\directory"

Partly copied from my blog: https://coertvonk.com/hw/logic/quartus-cycloneiv-de0nano-15932

Answer 2

In mklink:

/D Creates a directory symbolic link.

/J Creates a Directory Junction.

Here is the detail about the switches of mklink.

In your case, just replace /D with /J, for example:

mklink /J C:\Data\workspaces C:\Users\****\Documents\workspaces

This problem not only happened on Quick Access. For example, after you added a program as windows service, even the program path pointed to the link of symbolic link, the Service Manager still showing the target of symbolic in the service list.