Copying Cygwin symlinks through Windows Explorer won't make them working

Question

Given two paths with the same content:

D:\dir1\file1
D:\dir1\symlink1-to-file1

D:\dir2\file1
D:\dir2\symlink1-to-file1

If I create D:\dir2\symlink1-to-file1 by windows-copying it from D:\dir1\symlink1-to-file1, the link won't work and the file command will output :

D:\dir2\symlink1-to-file1: data

Why ?

Answer 1

Check file attribute with CMD command attrib

https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#pathnames-symlinks

if the default plain file symlink type is lacking its DOS SYSTEM bit, or if the shortcut file is lacking the DOS READONLY attribute, they are not recognized as symlink.