#1044: Using Symbolic Links to centralize any directory / file to a network location

There are scenarios where you may wish to manage files or directories from a network location for deploying TopoDOT supplementary files to your technicians. This can be managed through a Windows command called Symbolic Links.

Symbolic links are basically advanced shortcuts for Windows and Linux. When creating a symbolic link to an individual file or folder, that link will appear to be the same as the file or folder to Windows — even though it’s just a link pointing to the file or folder at a different location. This enables the user to move any file or directory to an arbitrary location and create a symbolic link so that the move is transparent to any program that might need to access it.

Be aware that performing this command does require local admin privileges.

For example, if you wish to centralize your TopoDOT breakline templates to a network folder:

1. Go into your C:\TopoDOT\ directory and rename your Templates directory (or delete if there are no contents worth backing up)
2. Open your start menu and type CMD. Right click on Command Prompt and click Run As Administrator
3. Enter in the following command to make a symbolic link at C:\TopoDOT\Templates\ that points to the network path of your choosing

mklink /D "C:\TopoDOT\Templates" "\\Path\To\Server"

To avoid any read/write file locking issues, we recommend making the network location read-only, which also makes sure that the templates aren’t inadvertently altered.