Enable symbolic links for Git on Windows 10

Enable symbolic links for Git on Windows 10.md

• during installation, set config to enabled
• edit policy, add your user on Local Comp Policy > Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Create symbolic links
• enable Windows Developer mode to bypass UAC requirement
  • Search > For developer settings > Dev mode

Also see this stack overflow answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/52097145/14420 for how to recover symlinks in an existing checkout as well as ensuring symlinks is set in each repository.

For existed repo directorys, addition from git config --global core.symlinks true as above,
I tried to set
git config --local core.symlinks true and git reset --hard HEAD to bring up the soft links.

Oof. Doing dev work on a corporate laptop that has overly aggressive STIGs. I wish Git would have added support for using directory junctions as a fallback option...

Enable Developer Mode from command line:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock" /t REG_DWORD /f /v "AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense" /d "1"

From < https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44158326/win10-how-to-activate-developer-mode-using-powershell-or-cmd-exe>

@maphew HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE requires administrator access to modify.

err, yes. I c/should have noted that @James-E-A.
For sake of completeness, it's my understanding that hard- and directory junction links also require admin privs on Windows (each time they're made).

@maphew no, actually; the reason I wished Git would check out symlinks locally as directory junctions is that you can create them as an unprivileged user on Windows, and they provide a UX almost identical to Linux's symlinks.

"By default, only Administrators can create symbolic links. The security setting 'Create symbolic links' can be granted at: Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment\

Creating a symbolic link requires elevation, but from Windows 10 build 14972, symlinks can be created without needing to elevate the console as administrator - this does however require that you have Developer Mode enabled."

-- https://ss64.com/nt/mklink.html