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Symbolic Linking

Symbolic links allow for the transparent sharing of data across volumes as well as network shares (i.e. data located on the same computer or on remote computers). The technology makes accessing data across various shared network resources easier and more transparent, in a similar way Distributed File System (DFS) does, but without the need to setup DFS infrastructure (of course, DFS functionality goes way beyond of what the symbolic links can do so, you have to understand the requirements and - use the right tool for the job).

If the notion of symbolic links sounds familiar that's because it has existed within the UNIX/Linux world pretty much forever. The functionality's now been made available in the Windows Server 2008 operating system to add some oomph to the migration from and the application compatibility with UNIX/Linux operating systems.


Well, regardless of where the functionality came from or what the intended goals might have been, it could still be quite handy in many other applications, simply consider it to be another tool in your belt.


For more information refer to the following links:
And to keep this post someone technical, here's a quick command that will enable all kinds of symbolic link evaluations (local and remote) on a particular Windows client (Vista, 7, 2008):
fsutil behavior set SymlinkEvaluation L2L:1 R2R:1 L2R:1 R2L:1
That's it folks. Enjoy.
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