An NTFS junction point is a feature of the NTFS file system that provides the ability to create a symbolic link to a directory which then functions as an alias of that directory. This has many benefits over a Windows shell shortcut (.lnk) file, such as allowing access to files within the directory via Windows Explorer, the Command Prompt, etc.
Junction points can only link to directories on a local volume; junction points to remote shares are unsupported.
Junction points are a type of NTFS reparse point; they were introduced with NTFS 3.0, the default file system for Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0). The Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Resource Kits include a program called linkd, to create junction points; Mark Russinovich of Winternals released a tool called junction which provided more complete functionality. Windows XP includes fsutil reparsepoint
. Windows NT 6.0 and later operating systems include an mklink command-line utility for creating junction points.
Read more about NTFS Junction Point: Obtaining A List of Junction Points, Creating or Deleting A Junction Point, Limitations
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