Creating a merge of two directories using symlink on Windows

Question

Is it possible to combine two separate directories into the same place on Windows using symbolic links?

Something like this:

mklink /J c:\Merged c:\Data\Dir1
mklink /J c:\Merged c:\Data\Dir2

Which doesn't actually work because C:\Merged cannot be created twice.

Or maybe there is an alternative way of dong this other than symlinks?

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 19 '13 at 17:27

5

That's not how symbolic links work. (So the answer to your question is "No", at least not with symbolic links.)

What you are looking for is called a Union Mount - I'm not aware of any way to accomplish this on Windows, though it may be possible and I've just never seen it...

answered Feb 19 '13 at 17:27

voretaq7

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Nope, not possible with anything built-in to Windows. – longneck Feb 19 '13 at 17:34
@longneck I don't think there's anything third-party either - it would be some pretty nasty filesystem hackery and I don't know anyone who would want to take that on in the Windows world... – voretaq7 Feb 19 '13 at 17:36
Thanks for the answer. I think it safe to assume it is not possible then. – NickC Feb 19 '13 at 19:27

Creating a merge of two directories using symlink on Windows

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