From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Johannes Schindelin Subject: Re: [PATCH] git-new-workdir: add windows compatibility Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 14:35:30 +0200 Organization: gmx Message-ID: <1fb8315dfaffb91ec4925bcc458e12a2@www.dscho.org> References: <1432642835.17513.22.camel@mad-scientist.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Junio C Hamano , Daniel Smith , git@vger.kernel.org, Jeff King , Ralf Wildenhues , Richard Hartmann To: paul@mad-scientist.net X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Tue May 26 15:24:22 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YxEq8-0006DL-4j for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Tue, 26 May 2015 15:24:16 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754216AbbEZNXH (ORCPT ); Tue, 26 May 2015 09:23:07 -0400 Received: from mout.gmx.net ([212.227.15.18]:49368 "EHLO mout.gmx.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754189AbbEZNXD (ORCPT ); Tue, 26 May 2015 09:23:03 -0400 Received: from www.dscho.org ([87.106.4.80]) by mail.gmx.com (mrgmx002) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0MYfre-1Ybh5i1Qfa-00VSpP; Tue, 26 May 2015 14:35:32 +0200 In-Reply-To: <1432642835.17513.22.camel@mad-scientist.net> X-Sender: johannes.schindelin@gmx.de User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/1.1.0 X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:rFYnthPARKsqyltJ865/K5BCXEFohfGOLvV6iCTCgxytbSmYFfy +dfUn+V8lWBuvGdvSLjACBBdBtLgfcQTPQmWuK08d8xleEnfJJGIXmKOMHe8VXli+Xbodxj wkdoMazza0csTKhD7LTbOKJcFrn9Lnt7BD9ujkYBp3/P1hIDsUokSroYgjdV1eHVSQooKyD ydwpYrI8hYeHZmGdouYZg== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1; Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Hi Paul, On 2015-05-26 14:20, Paul Smith wrote: > On Tue, 2015-05-26 at 11:53 +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote: >> The biggest problem with `mklink` is that it is only supported on >> Windows Vista and later, while I really like to keep Windows XP >> support in Git for Windows. > > No, the biggest problem with mklink is that you have to have > administrative privileges to use it... from wikipedia: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link It is even worse than that, as you pointed out below: administrators *can* permit non-administrators to create and use of symbolic links. However, from a maintainer's perspective (which is my role in this thread), the compatibility problem is an even worse problem than the permissions. >> The default security settings in Windows Vista/Windows 7 disallow >> non-elevated administrators and all non-administrators from creating >> symbolic links. This behavior can be changed running "secpol.msc" the >> Local Security Policy management console (under: Security Settings >> \Local Policies\User Rights Assignment\Create symbolic links). It can >> be worked around by starting cmd.exe with Run as administrator option >> or the runas command. > > Except even that is not so simple, as various StackOverflow questions > and answers will show (I have to run so I can't look them up now). I > did try to get this to work a year or so ago, and although I'm in no way > a Windows person (so maybe someone else would have better luck) I > couldn't get it to work. For what it is worth, I tried my hand a couple of years ago at the project to move git-new-workdir to use the `.git` *file* and alternates mechanisms, but that does not work because you really need a separate `.git/HEAD`. Ciao, Johannes