Creating hard and soft links using PowerShell

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 mimi

Answer 1

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"""
    }
}

Answer 2

You can use this utility:

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

Answer 3

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:

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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).