New NTFS Commands from Windows Vista

[dyhan81]

Do you have any plan to support new NTFS file system commands supported by Windows Vista?

related new command line commands on Window Vista are:
"MKLINK" is hard and soft linker similar with Unix "ln" command;
"COPY /L" is soft-link file duplicator similar with Unix's "cp -l" command.

If TC's copy, move and make .lnk commands are considered by new NTFS symbolic link, TC will be more useful for us!

References:
http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2006/04/15/576568.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/symbolic_links.asp

Have a good day~

[ghisler(Author)]

I didn't support the creation of NTFS links on Windows 2000/XP because they are too dangerous for normal users. Even Microsoft removed these functions from Explorer (they were there in an early beta) for the same reason. Therefor I will not support these functions on Vista either.

[roentgen]

Shift+F8 looks more "dangerous" to me.

[Flint]

Shift+F8 looks more "dangerous" to me.

Agree.

[ghisler(Author)]

Well, just F8 is an example of how dangerous these hard links are! If you have such a hard link an a subdirectory which you delete with EXPLORER, then Explorer will not only delete the link, but also the entire drive or subdirectory to which the link points! Total Commander is affected by this Explorer bug too if you enable the Explorer delete method in the configuration...

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

If you have such a hard link an a subdirectory which you delete with EXPLORER, then Explorer will not only delete the link, but also the entire drive or subdirectory to which the link points! Total Commander is affected by this Explorer bug too if you enable the Explorer delete method in the configuration...

Some time ago I suggested to support the FOF_NORECURSEREPARSE flag. Did you try this?

[ghisler(Author)]

No, I haven't found the time yet to reasearch
- which is the nummeric value of this flag
- on which Windows versions I can use it
- what side effects it has, e.g. the function failing on some Windows versions with this flag set
etc.

[dyhan81]

I understand How dangerous NTFS link feature is, anyway.

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)
Maybe I can help a bit here?

which is the nummeric value of this flag

It's defined in shlobj.h

Code: Select all

#define FOF_NORECURSEREPARSE       0x8000  // treat reparse points as objects, not containers

on which Windows versions I can use it

MSDN says _WIN32_WINNT must be 5.01. Here is a help page that explains that shell32 and shlwapi.dll must be 5.0 or higher. These DLL versions are shipped with Windows 2000 and higher.

[ghisler(Author)]

Thanks! It's just a bit late in the beta test to add it now...

[piotrr]

Bumping this just to say we don't need built-in NTFS reparse and hardlink specific support in TC when there are perfectly good command line tools to do so. fsutil in XP and mklink in Vista. Google them or /? them in CMD for more information.

Adding buttons in TC for these tools is already child's play and if you don't agree, perhaps the "NTFS Links" program works better for you. Not a "real" plugin but it looks perfect added as a button. Again, google is your friend here as I haven't posted enough to make URL links (a sensible system!)

[dott]

Bumping this just to say we don't need built-in NTFS reparse and hardlink specific support in TC when there are perfectly good command line tools to do so. fsutil in XP and mklink in Vista. Google them or /? them in CMD for more information.

Adding buttons in TC for these tools is already child's play and if you don't agree, perhaps the "NTFS Links" program works better for you. Not a "real" plugin but it looks perfect added as a button. Again, google is your friend here as I haven't posted enough to make URL links (a sensible system!)

Every tc user that ask for symlink/hardlink/junction functionality on tc is already using NTFSLinks, mklink or fsutil in buttons or user-defined commands in menus, command line, shortcuts, etc. We(I) think that tc, as advanced file manager, should include this functionality, of course the author have his opinion about that and he is the author.

[PhBa]

Christian, i reopen this old topic to continue our private exchange !

see - indeed it's currently not possible to create such links with Total Commander.
Why? It's quite risky, the user may create infinite loops, e.g. when a link points to
the parent directory of where the link is located. Also some programs delete the
files to which the link points instead of just deleting the link itself...

I do not agree with you:
First at all: all the destructive actions are dangerous for the common user.
Then, the deletion should affect the link/junction ONLY.

So, the deletion is risky with bugged programs... NOT with TC !

Note:
- Symbolic/soft links (i.e created with mklink /D) require administrative right to be created; and, they are very similar to the old windows shortcut.
- Junctions (i.e created with mklink /J) and hard links (i.e created with mklink /H) require no specific right...

Regards

[VSB]

I think, that this abilities must be optional and tuned off by default.

[roentgen]

I think, that this abilities must be optional and tuned off by default.

Why?