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I want to create a symbolic link with the mklink command so that when I need to reinstall my OS (Which happens frequently (And this morning)) I only need to format the partition that Windows 10 is installed to. My idea is to make several symbolic links: For Program Files, Program Files (x86), Program Data, and AppData. Each one will link to a corresponding folder on a different partition. The problem I notice is, messing with these folders is probably not a good idea, and doesn't work very well.

Sure, I could make a link for a folder INSIDE of Program Files, but what about the whole folder? And then, moving all of the existing files to the partition they are linked to?

Is there a way to do this? Is it risky? Is there a better way of going about doing this since this is probably not a good way?

I suppose if I created a few more partitions, I could mount the drives, but I don't know how that would fare either.

I've searched for a while, so I'm pretty sure this is not a good idea based on how I don't see anyone doing it, but are there alternatives? Not all programs give me the option of customizing install directory.

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  • You do understand what you describe, while possible, its not actually supported. So any problems you might have say, installing a Windows 10 update like the one due on Aug 2nd 2016, will likely be caused by these symbolic links.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 19:51
  • Yeah, I assumed it might cause issues. I'll just go with what I have then, unless someone posts some alternative to backing up stuff on a different partition. Thanks for the quick help!
    – Jarod Whiting
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 19:55
  • Don't. Some overzealous installer will definitely turn those back into a directory. After that, you'll have to reinstall Windows. These directories also contain Windows components and many programs won't work either without being properly installed. It's not worth the risk.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 19:55
  • Very well. I'll just make do. The ones that don't give the option of install directory are few, I could just re-install those pretty quickly.
    – Jarod Whiting
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 19:56
  • Oh, very good point. How could I forget the registry? I guess I will keep doing things how I always do them then. Thanks. :)
    – Jarod Whiting
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 20:41

1 Answer 1

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I just wanted to provide some context if you do this.

DO NOT DO THIS. WINDOWS 10 WILL BREAK ANY MS PRODUCTS AND WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO UPDATE.

I was able to achieve the proper symbolic links (you need to create the links, boot into linux, delete the program files folder and replace it with the link folder, boot back to windows and restore all the permissions).while it works for 99% of things, every MS product is unable to launch or run due to issues with they way they define directories. you can go to the directory it says don't exist, and visually inspect it, but something in the underlying services employed by MS do not allow their software to reside within a folder that has been symbolically linked to. (it even breaks any app that runs in UWP).

so far known affected programs

Windows Updater

Any UWP (microsoft store, any default windows 10 app (calculator, maps, skypes))

Entirety of Microsoft office

anything that uses DCOM

I think the issue is narrowed down to do with the initial boot of windows, from the event logs, its showing issues initializing services that rely on DCOM before it loads the hard drive the symbolic link points to. this shows an error of File not found. So at this point I'm guessing that due to these programs/services attempted to be started before the destination drive is validated, the whole thing comes crashing down.

there are also tons of repeated errors to do with the TFS service, which hints that window 10's local database is not being properly initialized due to the above issue.

TLDR: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS.

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    I was about to attempt this. I will now not attempt to attempt this.
    – Anthony Cregan
    Commented Aug 27, 2018 at 19:24

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