Can I use New-Symlink on UNC paths?

Question

I am trying to create a symlink to a file on Windows using PowerShell. I am using the New-Symlink cmdlet from the PowerShell Community Extensions.

After struggling to figure out the syntax of New-Symlink I was able to get it to work correctly on my local drive. However, I am trying to get it to work on a file share and when I run the command there, I get this output

[PC-KHARPER] <~>$ New-Symlink '\\nyprodfs01\profiles$\kharper\testDir\testFile2' '\\nyprodfs01\profiles$\kharper\testFile'
New-Symlink : Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
At line:1 char:1
+ New-Symlink '\\nyprodfs01\profiles$\kharper\testDir\testFile2' '\\nyprodfs01\pro ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (Microsoft.Power...stDir\testFile2:UnresolvedPscxPathImpl) [New-Symlink], Unauthoriz
   edAccessException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CreateSymbolicLinkError,Pscx.Commands.IO.Ntfs.NewSymlinkCommand

Is this expected output for UNC paths? Or should it be working and I'm just doing something wrong?

I'm not sure if it supports the target being another UNC path, but making a symlink on windows requires elevated permissions. * Is your script running elevated? * Does the elevated user have admin privileges on the target path? — Eris, Oct 17 '13 at 18:12
I am running an elevated prompt, but I don't have admin privileges on the fileserver. — Kris Harper, Oct 17 '13 at 19:46
Tried with someone who has admin rights on the box, but it still doesn't work. No error message, but no success either. — Kris Harper, Oct 17 '13 at 20:53
I do have the exact same error when doing something like `New-Symlink C:\path\to\link \\path\to\target\directory` while `mklink /D C:\path\to\link \\path\to\target\directory` works as expected. — Felix Bayer, Aug 19 '14 at 07:46

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 13 '17 at 16:47

If you use the symlink support that comes with PS5 (which came out well after this question was posted) then you can mount a symlink to a UNC share.

[host]: PS> New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path <localpath> -Value \\<uncpath>

There is a problem if you need to pass credentials as New-Item doesn't take creds. The workaround I use is to mount a PSDrive to the folder and then symlink the PSDrive.

[host]: PS> New-PSDrive Z FileSystem \\<uncpath> -Credential <cred> [host]: PS> New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path <path> -Value Z:\

Can I use New-Symlink on UNC paths?

1 Answers1