Re: [PATCH] git-new-workdir: add windows compatibility

From: Paul Smith <paul@mad-scientist.net>
Date: May 26, 2015, 12:20 UTC
Message-ID: <1432642835.17513.22.camel@mad-scientist.net>
In-Reply-To: <cbfbf842705637b52cde9c6b61f89a75@www.dscho.org>

On Tue, 2015-05-26 at 11:53 +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> The biggest problem with `mklink` is that it is only supported on
> Windows Vista and later, while I really like to keep Windows XP
> support in Git for Windows.

No, the biggest problem with mklink is that you have to have administrative privileges to use it... from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

Show 7 quoted lines

> The default security settings in Windows Vista/Windows 7 disallow
> non-elevated administrators and all non-administrators from creating
> symbolic links. This behavior can be changed running "secpol.msc" the
> Local Security Policy management console (under: Security Settings
> \Local Policies\User Rights Assignment\Create symbolic links). It can
> be worked around by starting cmd.exe with Run as administrator option
> or the runas command.

Except even that is not so simple, as various StackOverflow questions and answers will show (I have to run so I can't look them up now). I did try to get this to work a year or so ago, and although I'm in no way a Windows person (so maybe someone else would have better luck) I couldn't get it to work.