Directory junction/symbolic link not working

[ericwish1]

Recently I had to re-install Windows, but beforehand I had setup a directory junction for my Google Chrome installation. I did this because my boot drive is an SSD and I wanted to limit some of the writes to it because of cookies, etc. So I setup a directory junction from my C drive (ssd) to my other regular hard drive. Since re-installing Windows, though, I cannot successfully create one. Each time I try and make one, I check my hard drive properties and see that when I am using Google Chrome it is still writing to my SSD, I honestly have no idea what I am doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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[ericwish1]

I am also considering another windows re-installation. If someone could give me advice, I'd appreciate it.

 

[FliGi7]

How are you creating your symbolic link and what areas are you linking?

 

[ericwish1]

I have a small executable called Symlink creator and I've also just tried cmd. And as I said in my initial post, I am linking my google chrome installation from my C drive to my D drive.

 

[FliGi7]

You need to be more specific than linking "C drive to D drive". That is very vague. Which specific folder(s) are you linking? And how, specifically, have you tried linking the folder(s) via cmd? You need to walk us through the entire process of what you've tried so we can figure out at which step this process is going wrong.

 

[ericwish1]

Sorry about that, I am linking C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Google to D:\Program Files\Google
via cmd, I was using mklink /J C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Google "D:\Program Files\Google"
when I do that I either get, syntax was incorrect, or I get something about the destination file already being created

 

[FliGi7]

Gotcha. I have to ask if you're running the command prompt as Admin. If so, and you're still getting errors, have you tried putting both paths in double quotes?

 

[FliGi7]

Ok, let's start over as I think I know what's going on. Delete the Google folder in the D:\Program Files directory. First, enable the "Show hidden files and folders" option in the Folder Options so we know we're getting all the files copied over correctly. Then, the process is as follows:


1) Copy the C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Google folder to your D:\Program Files directory so that the D:\Program Files\Google folder is created. A simple copy and paste in explorer should work fine.

2) Perform the directory junction via an Admin command prompt by typing the following:
mklink /J "C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Google" "D:\Program Files\Google"


That should work. If it doesn't, you may need to delete the original directory before making the directory junction in step 2 by typing the following command in an Admin command prompt:

rmdir "C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Google" /S /Q

 

[ericwish1]

Wow you are good man, I've never seen someone figure out a problem that quickly. But here is one weird thing that is going on, that, to my knowledge, didn't happen before. When I had both of the hard drive properties open, and only had chrome open, the c drive was still sometimes getting written too. So, I am not quite sure why that is happening.

P.S., in that remove directory command, what doe /S /Q mean?

 

[FliGi7]

So it worked?

Windows does a ton of small writes to the system in its day to day operations. Download and run SysInternals ProcMon and fire it up with no other programs running on your system and you'll see the incredible amount of stuff going on behind the scenes. However, if you are saying Chrome itself is still writing to the OS drive, then we need to figure what other folders it is writing to.

The /S flag tells it to delete all subdirectories and the /Q flag tells it to do it all without prompting you whether you want to delete each item.

 

[ericwish1]

Yeah it looks like it works. Other than those writes that I see happening periodically, it looks good. As I said, I've never seen someone answer this kind of question so quickly. Thanks.

 

[FliGi7]

No problem. Glad it works and glad to contribute.

 

[FliGi7]

You could also try this tweak with Firefox if you use it:

Speed Up Firefox by Moving Your Cache to RAM, No RAM Disk Required

 

[Bcavinc]

FLiGi7,
My idea was to setup the first OS, OS1 then copy or clone it to My OS2 Partition as a backup copy. I tried using Norton Ghost 11 from a CD and it messed up both the copy and the source OS. The copy boots and works for the most part but I can not install programs. Links are missing.
It would not copy Symlinks and junction points. Even worse it deleted Symlinks and junction points for the C:/Users/ All users directory in both OS's.
I have never encountered such a problem.
I do not have a clue how to fix this without a total reinstall.

If I could copy symlinks from another working machine. I could manually rebuild the 'USERS directory' structure.

Got any ideas on how to copy Symlinks and junction points without coping their contents ?
I read Xcopy is able to copy Symlinks and junction points without coping their contents, using the /b option but I can not get the syntax correct.

Bcavinc
@gmail.com

 

[FliGi7]

What syntax are you using?

For the record, it sounds like so much has happened/changed that it might be prudent to just do a re-install and bite the bullet.

 

[habibi]

What's the difference between /d and /j in the command mklink?

 

[logicearth]

/d creates a directory symbolic link while /j creates a junction. But I assume you mean behavior difference? None other then junctions work with older installations of Windows.

 

[habibi]

hi logicearth -you are right. I don't understand what is a symbolic link and a junction. I assume they are the same and based on what you are saying, they are the same, except junction will work with older Windows - by this I guess you mean XP, 2000, NT?

 

[logicearth]

NTFS junction point - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia