Hello Peter,
Deleting anything in the link/junction or target (source) folder will delete it in both folders.
Deleting the hard link, symbolic link, or junction point itself will not delete anything in the target (source) folder.
Find All Symbolic Links and Junction Points in Windows Tutorial | Windows 11 Forum
Just like I already said, issuing the del command on a Junction or Directory Symlink (SymlinkD) causes both the link and the target folder to remain present. Only the files are deleted from the target folder. Whereas if you use File Explorer to delete the link, it just deletes the link, i.e., not the files inside the target folder nor anything else. Therefore, if you need to use the command line (or a batch script) instead of File Explorer, then if you only want to delete the Junction or SymlinkD, you need to use the rd (rmdir) command, not the del command. This holds true on Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11 and NTFS.
@hdmi and @thename, thank you for your inputs and the "extraneous verbage" that was useful for me
Deleting a junction point or a symlinkD with the del command does work for me the same way you detailed.
Just to mention that for my first tests, it was looking like it would work the same way described by @Brink, i.e. the del command applied to a symlinkD or a junction would not delete anything in the target folder. But I was just running "del <symlinkD/junction name>. Running "del [/Q /S] <symlinkD/junction name>\<filename to be deleted>" was the right command to delete any file or sub-folder in the target folder. Thanks again for the confirmation and "extraneous verbage"
del <symlinkD/junction name>is equivalent todel <target of the symlinkD/junction>(if we can assume that the symlinkD/junction name can be resolved by the del command).
del <directory name>is equivalent todel <directory name>\*according to the explanation you get when you typedel /?and, according to this same explanation, you can choose to suppress the confirmation prompt by adding the /Q option. The asterisk symbol*is called the global wildcard. The /S option allows you to specify individual files to be deleted, but this choice is entirely optional also. To summarize, it still deletes all the files if you choose NOT to use the /S option, and in fact the confirmation prompt also tells you─with laser-sharp verbiage that no one can deny─that <directory name>\* is what you're about to delete.
Does the recieving directory need to be there?
Say you have mklink /j C:\program files\nch files\WordPad a:\applications \nch programs\[does this directory need to exist?]
I have read yes and no. Will it create it on the a drive without it?
John
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