Options for using hard links in Windows

This morning a task appeared - to selectively put a number of files into a shared folder from a network folder closed to public access on a Windows file server. Immediately a mass of unpleasant thoughts was formed in my head, concerning both the problems of working together, and the loss of disk space, and so on. But after a few seconds, I suggested to myself to take advantage of the remarkable feature of the NTFS file system — hard links .

The essence of the idea: there are a couple of folders with open access on the network. The first one has a ban on reading for all and permission for a specific group. The second folder has access for all users. To allow all users to select multiple sample documents from the first folder, I created hard links to the required documents. Thus, it was possible to avoid all possible negative points.

For simple link building, I use the Link Shell Extension . Select the required for publication files in the source folder, right-click select Pick Link Source, go to the recipient folder and select Drop HardLink by right-click.
')
I hope that this decision will be useful to someone.

Earlier on Habré already wrote about the theory of symbolic and hard links .