Solved Give junction point Special Folder properties?

[Clonkex]

[SOLVED] Give junction point Special Folder properties?

Hi all,

I recently bought a new Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SSD. Previously I had been using a Seagate 1TB platter-based HDD. I used Paragon Migrate OS to SSD to migrate most of my files over, leaving behind all my big games and my My Pictures, My Videos and My Music folders which all contained a lot of data and can't go on the SSD.

In order for my playlists (among other things) to work without having to go through and manually edit each file, I created junction points to my 1TB HDD. The problem with that is two-fold: First, the folders have the shortcut symbol on them. This is a very minor complaint, but ideally I want the folders to look exactly like folders. Second, the folders have to be named Pictures, Videos and Music, since that's what they're actually called. This is a problem because I want them to be visibly called My Music etc.

And this is my question: Is it possible to make a junction point look exactly like a My Music folder, including the fake name? Any ideas would be much appreciated

 

[Clonkex]

Unashamed bump-because-surely-someone-must-know-even-with-410-views.

 

[Pyprohly]

Hi Clonkex,

You didn't mention anything about icons not showing on the Junction points, regardless, I'll explain how it's done to get icons working on them.

Simply give the Junction points either a Read-only or System attribute (preferably read-only) and the icons on the Junction points should match up with the target.

Example of giving a Junction point (or Symbolic Link) a read-only attribute:

Attrib <PathOfJunctionPt> +R /L

Now to make the names look proper, it's going to be tricky. Desktop.ini files do not affect the display name of junction points. Here, you can only do something fancy:

Step 1) Set a hidden attribute to each of your junction points.
Step 2) Create new junction points that point to these hidden junction points.
Step 3) Now you may rename the new juntion points to whatever you like.

Take for instance:
D:\Somepath\My Music
and
D:\Somepath\Music

Where both are Junction points. The 'Music' junction will be hidden but still be seen/accessable by programs. The 'My Music' junction (which you should create) that you will see and use, will point to the 'Music' junction which in turn points to the real folder.

Remember to set a Read-only attribute to each of the junctions if you want the icons to display.


To answer your actual question, but

Is it possible to make a junction point look exactly like a My Music folder, including the fake name?

No. It's not possible. A Junction point is not a folder.


As for the little annoying blue arrow on the virtural folders, I'm sure someone else in this forum can hopefully butt in and give a suggestion on how to remove it.

 

[Anak]

Hi Clonkex, and Pyprohly welcome to 7F!

Hey guys, you don't mind if I "butt in" do ya?

To remove the shortcut arrow:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3606-shortcut-arrow-change-remove-restore.html

If you wanted to streamline the look even further as in hiding the Icon:
How to Hide a Folder or Shortcut Icon in Vista and Windows 7

Don't forget to check the Related Tutorials at the bottom of each tutorial. There is an extensive repository of Tutorials here, I find its easier to look for them using the Tutorials Quick Reference Index.


Clonkex, hows that Samsung running, did you have any problems connecting it?

 

[Clonkex]

Wow, those were fast replies! Awesome, thanks for the help!

You didn't mention anything about icons not showing on the Junction points

No I didn't, but I'm glad you told me anyway because I just noticed the icon is only working for one of the folders.

Desktop.ini files do not affect the display name of junction points.

So THAT'S how those folders know what to call themselves!! I'd been searching for ages, trying to work out what it was that identified them! Didn't help that, while I've seen Desktop.ini files before, I've never known what they were for.

The 'Music' junction will be hidden but still be seen/accessable by programs. The 'My Music' junction (which you should create) that you will see and use, will point to the 'Music' junction which in turn points to the real folder.

That's brilliant! What a good idea! I can't believe I didn't think of that. The only disadvantage is that when I point new programs to the music folder I will have to manually type 'Music' into the address bar if I want to allow future compatibility if I were to move my music folder back to my SSD. Small price to pay, however - very good idea, thank you!

Hey guys, you don't mind if I "butt in" do ya?

Certainly not - butt away

To remove the shortcut arrow:

Hmm... that removes the arrow for all shortcuts, does it not? I would like to keep my shortcut arrows for actual shortcuts, just not for these specific junction points. Asking a lot, I realise, but you never know what clever little tricks some Windows experts have up their sleeves so it's always worth asking

If you wanted to streamline the look even further as in hiding the Icon:

lol I don't even know why you'd want that!

There is an extensive repository of Tutorials here, I find its easier to look for them using the Tutorials Quick Reference Index.

Cool thanks, that's useful!

Clonkex, hows that Samsung running, did you have any problems connecting it?

It's really great! No problems whatsoever! Super-speedy, and Paragon's Migrate OS to SSD did a perfect job

So now I'm going to go do some quick experimentation before I go to bed. Hopefully your solutions will result is a near-perfect end product. At the very least, they'll do the main things I wanted: Correct visual AND actual folder names and correct icons. The shortcut icons... I can definitely put up with

I won't mark as Solved until I've got the best possible solution (and I know it all works!) but I'm pretty sure you've solved my biggest problems. Cheers!

 

[Clonkex]

I put together a quick batch to do it for me and it works beautifully! Have a look:

@echo off

echo Creating program-accessible junction point links...
echo.

mklink c:\users\%USERNAME%\Music e:\users\%USERNAME%\music /J
mklink c:\users\%USERNAME%\Pictures e:\users\%USERNAME%\pictures /J
mklink c:\users\%USERNAME%\Videos e:\users\%USERNAME%\videos /J

echo.
echo Creating visible junction point links...
echo.

mklink "c:\users\%USERNAME%\My Music" e:\users\%USERNAME%\music /J
mklink "c:\users\%USERNAME%\My Pictures" e:\users\%USERNAME%\pictures /J
mklink "c:\users\%USERNAME%\My Videos" e:\users\%USERNAME%\videos /J

echo.
echo Setting attributes...
echo.

attrib c:\users\%USERNAME%\Music +H /L
attrib c:\users\%USERNAME%\Pictures +H /L
attrib c:\users\%USERNAME%\Videos +H /L
attrib "c:\users\%USERNAME%\My Music" +R /L
attrib "c:\users\%USERNAME%\My Pictures" +R /L
attrib "c:\users\%USERNAME%\My Videos" +R /L

echo Done! Now restart explorer (or log out and in).
echo.
pause

 

[Pyprohly]

That was quite quick of you to piece together that script.

So THAT'S how those folders know what to call themselves!

There's a reason for everything.
Also, by "Special Folder Properties" in the thread title, I guess you were refering to these 'desktop.ini' files -- which, no, cannot be 'given'/applied to Junction points (exception: the custom icon setting in the file which does take affect on Junctions (if the junction has a Read-only or System attribute of course)).


Anyway, glad you sound very satisfied.

Please mark the thread as Solved once you feel that all your questions have been answered.

You may post back any time should you requre further assistance on this topic.

 

[Anak]

Hmm... that removes the arrow for all shortcuts, does it not? I would like to keep my shortcut arrows for actual shortcuts, just not for these specific junction points. Asking a lot, I realise, but you never know what clever little tricks some Windows experts have up their sleeves so it's always worth asking

You're correct. I looked through the tutorial and didn't find any similar desire, I would suggest to go to the tutorial and submit your question there, if anyone would know it would be Brink.

 

[Clonkex]

I would suggest to go to the tutorial and submit your question there, if anyone would know it would be Brink.

Done!

 

[Anak]

I see Brink didn't know of a way to remove that overlay from within the OS, but I may have found two third-party programs that might help, see this thread: http://Is there a way to show junctions differently in windows explorer? | superuser.com/questions

http://[SIZE=-1]Link Shell Extension | [/SIZE]schinagl.priv.at Is newer than http://NTFS Link | elsdoerfer.name as NTFS Link only mentions up to Vista and Link Shell up to Win7/8. They both look like they can remove the shortcut overlay, but if you want to try the NTFS link you may have to run it in compatibility mode for Win7.

 

[Clonkex]

Perfect, thankyou!! Link Shell Extension does exactly what I need! I just created a 256x256 blank, transparent icon with Gimp and used that in LSEConfig

 

[Pauly]

Link shell extension looks like a nice shell integration with some nice features if you want to customise but has some handy functions too, nice find anak

 

[Anak]

To Clonkex, and Pauly; You're welcome it was my pleasure.