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Mklink windows soft & hard link

on windows, you can have 1 folder in 2 places at the same time.

mklink /j "DESTINATION" "SOURCE_FOLDER"

For folders, using /j instead of /d shows all individual files in source control.
this way code can be shared easily across 2 repos. e.g. when development happens in git, but distribution to artists uses a different source control.

Options

Without any extra options, mklink creates a symbolic link to a file. The below command creates a symbolic, or “soft”, link at Link pointing to the file Target :

mklink Link Target

Use /D when you want to create a soft link pointing to a directory. like so:

mklink /D Link Target

Use /H when you want to create a hard link pointing to a file:

mklink /H Link Target

Use /J to create a hard link pointing to a directory, also known as a directory junction:

mklink /J Link Target

Warning

if you want to delete this link, do not delete it in explorer.
since this also deletes all content of the original folder.
instead use 

rmdir "path_to_link"

Pay attention when linking to folders under sourcecontrol, since swapping branches can trigger a folder delete.

you can cd to a directory, and just use folder names to make links relative. don’t use C:/ or it will be explicit.
e.g. mklink /j "vendor" "../vendor"
both types of slashes are accepted for paths

To see backlinks in the folder
print all symlinks in a folder, source 

dir /al /s

to print all symlinks for C:\Users
⚠ slow if run on whole PC ⚠

dir 'C:\Users' -recurse -force | ?{$_.LinkType} | select FullName,LinkType,Target

other commands¶

these commands have some issues where they don’t always list all links.

print symlinks on your pc

cmd /E /C "prompt $T$$ & echo.%TIME%$ & dir /AL /S C:\ | find "SYMLINK" & for %%Z in (.) do rem/ "

print hardlinks

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Windows\","c:\","$env:USERPROFILE" -Force |
    Where-Object { $_.LinkType -ne $null -or $_.Attributes -match "ReparsePoint" } |
    ft FullName,Linktype,Target

Windows link file distribution