Hi Paul, On 2015-05-26 14:20, Paul Smith wrote: > 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 It is even worse than that, as you pointed out below: administrators *can* permit non-administrators to create and use of symbolic links. However, from a maintainer's perspective (which is my role in this thread), the compatibility problem is an even worse problem than the permissions. >> 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. For what it is worth, I tried my hand a couple of years ago at the project to move git-new-workdir to use the `.git` *file* and alternates mechanisms, but that does not work because you really need a separate `.git/HEAD`. Ciao, Johannes -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html