[tex-live] Copying symbolic links to Windows

[poti at potis.org]

On 12:01 Fri 24 Aug     , Siep Kroonenberg wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 05:48:17PM -0400, poti at potis.org wrote:

> > The problem is, to maintain the cross-platform feature and to 
> > avoid the need for an installer, I need to copy Linux and OSX
> > symbolic links (for example, those in the TeXLive2007/bin/*-darwin 
> > directories).
> > 
> > On some PCs, I can do this (I am at a Windows XP pc where I just did), and 
> 
> Are you sure? A quick Google search suggested that before Vista
> symlinks or junctions were available only for directories, and hard
> links for files.
Thank you Siep,
I should be more precise: the objects which function as links in Linux
and OSX need to be copied to a volume under Windows in a way such
that they can be re-copied to removable media and function as
ordinary links once that removable media is mounted in OSX, for example.

They need not function as links in Windows, and in the case I describe
as success above, they do not. They just appear as small files. I will
test again to be sure. The key is that they should not block copying a
directory to the hard drive, which they do in the failure cases, and
that they should be present as links, not duplicate copies, once on a
Unix-like operating system again.

> 
> sysinternals.com has tools for manipulating junctions; see under
> File & Disk Utilities.
> 
I will have a look. 

> By the way. It makes me mad that Microsoft bitches about their
> intellectual property whereas they keep adopting more Unix features,
> implicitly admitting that all along Unix was right and they were
> wrong. So their intellectual property mainly cover botched solutions
> to problems that were already solved right in Unix. Sorry for the
> rant.
Sentiments heartily shared. I hope the efforts of people like you may
ease people toward the better ways of doing things. 

> 
> > on others, I cannot (e.g. a brand new, off the shelf, Windows Vista laptop
> > and a Windows Server 2003). Unzipping a zip archive containing such links
> > also fails, even on the PC where I can copy the links. It seems to be 
> > an issue with permissions or security settings of some sort.