Question about FSUTIL HARDLINK CREATE

[Ron]

I have two apps that need to access the same (three large audio sample
library) files, but the locations of the files are hardcoded into each app.
I'm running Win XP Home SP2 with NTFS. To save (1.6G of) space, I followed
a forum suggestion to use the subject command. The newly created links are
in a different directory from the originals, and have the same names as the
originals. They behave as expected - ie. are appropriately recognized by
the app.

Here's what puzzles me. In windows Explorer, there is nothing to indicate
that the new entries are merely pointers. In fact, they appear to be simple
*copies* of the originals, and are listed as having the same sizes as the
originals. (This is true even when checking them with the DIR command in a
command window.) None of the descriptions of FSUTIL HARDLINK CREATE that
I've seen indicate how the new links will appear in Explorer. Am I missing
something? Are these copies or symbolic links? If links, how do I measure
their true size - or at least keep windows from counting them as taking up
all that space? And how may they be marked as links so that I don't confuse
them with original files in the future?

Thx for any help. -Ron

 

[Guest]

Windows allocates space to the copy because "Windows is Not 're-entrant' "
Fsutil is shelling out, and you are trying to change the parent environment.
(permanately, such that leaving the shell sees the parent environment still
changed)

If you're sitting on a limb, and saw it off, you fall down.

 

[Ron]

Thanks for the response. I thought the whole point of a hardlink is that it
is *not* a copy, just a pointer. By "allocaties space", are you saying
that there really is no advantage of a hardlink over a straight file copy
vis a vis space management? Guess I need to read up on "shelling out" and
"re-entrant."