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However, a hard link makes it appear as though the file or folder actually exists at the location of the symbolic link, and your applications won't know any better. That makes hard symbolic links more useful in most situations.Ĭhris Hoffman is the former Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. When you open a soft link to a folder, you will be redirected to the folder where the files are stored. Soft symbolic links work similarly to a standard shortcut. There are two type of symbolic links: Hard and soft. This trick can be used for all sorts of things, including syncing any folder with programs like Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Windows will automatically redirect it to D:\Stuff, and everything will just work as if it were in C:\Program. When you relaunch the program, it will try to access its directory at C:\Program. You could move the original directory from C:\Program to D:\Stuff, and then create a symbolic link at C:\Program pointing to D:\Stuff. You'd really like to store this directory at D:\Stuff, but the program requires that its files be at C:\Program. For example, let's say you have a program that needs its files at C:\Program.
