Creating hard and soft links using PowerShell

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/894430

  •  23-08-2019
  •  | 
  •  

Question

Can PowerShell 1.0 create hard and soft links analogous to the Unix variety?

If this isn't built in, can someone point me to a site that has a ps1 script that mimics this?

This is a necessary function of any good shell, IMHO. :)

Was it helpful?

Solution

You can call the mklink provided by cmd, from PowerShell to make symbolic links:

cmd /c mklink c:\path\to\symlink c:\target\file

You must pass /d to mklink if the target is a directory.

cmd /c mklink /d c:\path\to\symlink c:\target\directory

For hard links, I suggest something like Sysinternals Junction.

OTHER TIPS

Windows 10 (and Powershell 5.0 in general) allows you to create symbolic links via the New-Item cmdlet.

Usage:

New-Item -Path C:\LinkDir -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value F:\RealDir

Or in your profile:

function make-link ($target, $link) {
    New-Item -Path $link -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value $target
}

Turn on Developer Mode to not require admin privileges when making links with New-Item:

enter image description here

No, it isn't built into PowerShell and the utility mklink on Windows Vista/Windows 7 is built directly into cmd.exe. You can use the PowerShell Community Extensions (free). There are several cmdlets for reparse points of various types:

  • New-HardLink,
  • New-SymLink,
  • New-Junction,
  • Remove-ReparsePoint
  • and others.

In Windows 7, the command is

fsutil hardlink create new-file existing-file

PowerShell finds it without the full path (c:\Windows\system32) or extension (.exe).

New-Symlink:

Function New-SymLink ($link, $target)
{
    if (test-path -pathtype container $target)
    {
        $command = "cmd /c mklink /d"
    }
    else
    {
        $command = "cmd /c mklink"
    }

    invoke-expression "$command $link $target"
}

Remove-Symlink:

Function Remove-SymLink ($link)
{
    if (test-path -pathtype container $link)
    {
        $command = "cmd /c rmdir"
    }
    else
    {
        $command = "cmd /c del"
    }

    invoke-expression "$command $link"
}

Usage:

New-Symlink "c:\foo\bar" "c:\foo\baz"
Remove-Symlink "c:\foo\bar"

The Junction command line utility from Sysinternals makes creating and deleting symbolic (soft)links easy. Hard Links and Junctions in Windows.

You can use this utility: 

c:\Windows\system32\fsutil.exe create hardlink

I wrote a PowerShell module that has native wrappers for MKLINK. https://gist.github.com/2891103

Includes functions for:

  • New-Symlink
  • New-HardLink
  • New-Junction

Captures the MKLINK output and throws proper PowerShell errors when necessary.

I combined two answers (@bviktor and @jocassid). It was tested on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012.

function New-SymLink ($link, $target)
{
    if ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major -ge 5)
    {
        New-Item -Path $link -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value $target
    }
    else
    {
        $command = "cmd /c mklink /d"
        invoke-expression "$command ""$link"" ""$target"""
    }
}

Actually, the Sysinternals junction command only works with directories (don't ask me why), so it can't hardlink files. I would go with cmd /c mklink for soft links (I can't figure why it's not supported directly by PowerShell), or fsutil for hardlinks.

If you need it to work on Windows XP, I do not know of anything other than Sysinternals junction, so you might be limited to directories.

I found this the simple way without external help. Yes, it uses an archaic DOS command but it works, it's easy, and it's clear.

$target = cmd /c dir /a:l | ? { $_ -match "mySymLink \[.*\]$" } | % `
{
    $_.Split([char[]] @( '[', ']' ), [StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries)[1]
}

This uses the DOS dir command to find all entries with the symbolic link attribute, filters on the specific link name followed by target "[]" brackets, and for each - presumably one - extracts just the target string.

Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top