Re: [h-e-w] 23.1.50; Emacs W32 does not respect native symbolic links on Windows 7 (NTFS filesystem)

[Jason Rumney]

Christoph LANGE <address@hidden> writes:

> Here's how to reproduce. This procedure works on Windows 7; on earlier
> versions it's slightly more complicated:
>
> 1. Open a Windows command line with admin permissions, e.g. use
> "Start", then type "cmd", then hit C-S-RET
>
> 2. Suppose a file named "target" exists.  Type
>
>    mklink source target
>
>    (Mind the order, it's opposite from "ln")
>
> 3. Open "source" in Emacs W32, edit it, save it.
>
> 4. Result: "source" is a normal file.  If Emacs has created a backup
>    "source~", the latter is still a symlink.

What is the value of the variable `backup-by-copying'?  Does changing it
make any difference?

You are right that Emacs on Windows does not support symlinks, but that
only means that the variable `backup-by-copying-when-linked' will not
have any effect.