Re: [PATCH] git-new-workdir: add windows compatibility

Johannes Schindelin venit, vidit, dixit 26.05.2015 14:35:

Hi Paul,

On 2015-05-26 14:20, Paul Smith wrote:

quoted

On Tue, 2015-05-26 at 11:53 +0200, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

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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.

quoted

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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

Isn't that basically the approach that "git checkout --to" is taking? Is
that one "Windows proof"? I've lost track of its status, though.

Michael