Powershell Remove Symbolic Link Windows

Question

I am having issues when removing SymbolicLinks which I have created with New-Item:

New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path C:\SPI -Target "C:\Users\Chino\Dropbox (Reserve Membership)\"

I need to modify the link because it has the wrong -Target, which should be:

New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path C:\SPI -Target "C:\Users\Chino\Dropbox (Reserve Membership)\SPI"

How to remove that link and assign a new one? Alternatively, how to update the target path of the existing link?

This is not removing the link but rather replacing/updating it. Have you tried the `-Force` parameter? — Lance U. Matthews, Aug 06 '17 at 21:50
Correct, I do not know how to remove the link- The second item is just showing what I needed it to be. — thebusiness11, Aug 06 '17 at 22:47
It's absolutely absurd that `Remove-Item` on a symbolic directory link attempts to recursively delete the original folder. — Neonit, Mar 12 '21 at 09:32

score 45 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 06 '17 at 23:26

45

Calling Delete() on the corresponding DirectoryInfo object should do the trick:

(Get-Item C:\SPI).Delete()
New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path C:\SPI -Target "C:\Users\Chino\Dropbox (Reserve Membership)\SPI"

answered Aug 06 '17 at 23:26

Mathias R. Jessen

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(Get-Item C:\SPI).Delete() still works as expected: Removing the SymbolicLink and leaving the target folder intact. (Tested PS6 win10) – Joe Johnston Dec 15 '20 at 15:54
Thx! It also works in older versions like Power Shell 4. – Gerard Bosch Mar 14 '23 at 22:05

score 19 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 06 '17 at 23:40

If you want to change the target path of the existing symbolic link C:\SPI from "C:\Users\Chino\Dropbox (Reserve Membership)\" to "C:\Users\Chino\Dropbox (Reserve Membership)\SPI\" you do not need to delete the link beforehand. Simply including the -Force parameter to overwrite the link works for me in PowerShell 5.1 on Windows 10 Pro v1603:

New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path C:\SPI -Target "C:\Users\Chino\Dropbox (Reserve Membership)\SPI" -Force

This was the most successful way to accomplish what needed to happen. — thebusiness11, Aug 07 '17 at 01:29

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 06 '17 at 23:05

4

No way to update the symbolic link as far as I know. Gotta use CMD to remove symbolic link and you could then re-create it using your powershell script. You would do it like this in powershell.

cmd /c "rmdir C:\SPI"

answered Aug 06 '17 at 23:05

Luisrorta

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Powershell Remove Symbolic Link Windows

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