Git Symlinks in Windows

Question

Our developers use a mix of Windows and Unix based OS\'s. Therefore, symlinks created on Unix machines become a problem for Windows developers. In windows (msysgit), the sym

Answer 1

For those using CygWin on Vista, Win7, or above, the native git command can create "proper" symlinks that are recognized by Windows apps such as Android Studio. You just need to set the CYGWIN environment variable to include winsymlinks:native or winsymlinks:nativestrict as such:

export CYGWIN="$CYGWIN winsymlinks:native"

The downside to this (and a significant one at that) is that the CygWin shell has to be "Run as Administrator" in order for it to have the OS permissions required to create those kind of symlinks. Once they're created, though, no special permissions are required to use them. As long they aren't changed in the repository by another developer, git thereafter runs fine with normal user permissions.

Personally, I use this only for symlinks that are navigated by Windows apps (i.e. non-CygWin) because of this added difficulty.

For more information on this option, see this SO question: How to make symbolic link with cygwin in Windows 7