TC 9.22a behavior of copying/moving/sync. NTFS link types

[byblo]

A little picture to share some of my comments, observations and tables about the current status of Total Commander 9.22a behavior of copying/moving/syncronizing NTFS link types: (Junction directory, Symbolic directory, Symbolic file, Hardlink file) on NTFS volumes.

If you're using that type of links for any reason, or simply using TC to backup your system drive manually into some backup folder(not a good idea, btw), I recommend you carefully read the picture content to get a clearer view of the current status (wrote in +-english)

edit2:Erratum on this posted picture (link just below): Actually, FastCopy can ALSO copy hardlink files if you specify it with the /linkdest command, or linkdest=1 in the FastCopy2.ini (see my next post on this topic for more details)
Image: https://i.postimg.cc/z5vSKbsK/Total-Commander-922ax86-ntfs-links-warning-and-table.png

This post wants to be also a strong but non-agressive request to Mr. ghisler to finalize the NTFS link support for TC.

To me, this is the most important problem of TC since years (TC is a files manager in the first place, thus not dealing correctly some important and common types feels like a nonsense)

edit:To complete the topic, some useful link related to the topic of junction vs symbolic directory, and more: https://superuser.com/questions/343074/directory-junction-vs-directory-symbolic-link

[MVV]

Hardlinks can't be detected as links so TC always copies them normally. There is no way to tell which hardlink is a main item and which one is a link, all hardlinks of a file are equal in rights and are just file entries (only hard link count value is greater than 1 but it can't help in link detection).

[byblo]

Sorry, I made a mistake on my tests, actually, FastCopy can ALSO copy hardlink files if you specify it with the /linkdest command, or linkdest=1 in the FastCopy2.ini

I should have read more carefully the documentation...

This said, i still do not recommend it, since it is needed in very rare occasion (or even never) and can also slow down the copying as notified in the FC documentation.