Re: Win32 Installation issues

[Bryan J. S. <b.j...@ie...>]

Andrew Sharp wrote:
> Heh.  Well, no.  But close as it gets, I suppose.  Just don't
> be dim and try and edit a shortcut file directly.  But I've
> used them successfully instead of symlinks on many occassions,
> and, contrary to what some believe, they will work in cases not
> involving the UI.

Yo!  Original NT 3.1 beta-tester here ...

Microsoft delivered a "bare boned" POSIX layer in NT 3.1+.  Someone
ported the "ln" command over (along with others).  Sure enough, use
of it basically destroyed your NTFS volume very quickly (or it
became "difficult" to delete things).  Through NT 4.0, I didn't see
any improvement.  The utilities were available on the Resource Kits.

> NTFS, which is what we have to deal with going forward, doesn't
> support symlinks either, but it does have something called "juntion
> points" which is essentially a symlink to a directory.  Regular
> files don't get the priviledge yet, to my knowledge.

Man of us early NT adopters suggested that Microsoft start mounting
all fixed disk volumes into subdirectories on drive C: (with "C:"
being like /), ala UNIX-like, but maintaining driver letter
compatibility.  This was only for fixed disks -- e.g., floppy would
stay A:, CD could be whatever, etc...  Microsoft said it would just
"confuse people" and they believed the combination of "shared
volumes" and shortcuts would do the same.

Of course they didn't seem to be on the same page as the rest of us.

After years of supporting NT (1992-1999), I finally chucked it on
all the networks I support, just because I find UNIX/Linux much
easier to manage (Linux has been "desktop ready" since 1999 IMHO). 
I _refuse_ to use it as a server, and _barely_ support it as a
workstation.  So, I haven't done much NT hacking since late 1998**. 
If you have any info on "junction points," I'd like to hear more
about them.

-- Bryan
   
**NOTE:  I've been a 100% Linux guy for almost 3 years, but I have
started running Windows XP Professional at home for 2 programs (both
games).  So if you know how to use "junction points" under XP,
please let me know.  I consider Windows XP Professional to be "one
step forward" (more reliabile than DOS-based Win9x/ME, but nearly as
application compatible), and "one step back" (less secure than
NT-based WinNT/2000, because of the Win9x/ME application
compatibility's "NT kernel hacks").

-- 
Bryan J. Smith, Engineer        mailto:b.j...@ie...   
AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.     http://www.linux-wlan.org
SmithConcepts, Inc.          http://www.SmithConcepts.com