Re: How to specify path to .emacs.d

[Evan Driscoll <driscoll@cs.wisc.edu>]

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On 10/29/2012 03:37 PM, Barry OReilly wrote:
> Another use case is that I'm getting my Emacs configuration to work on
> Windows, and I discovered that Windows shortcuts are apparently .lnk
> files and don't function like a symlink.  I'm unsure how to use a
> .emacs.d at an arbitrary location, and only know to copy it to home
> instead.  This is inconvenient because I want to use a .emacs.d straight
> out of a Mercurial repo located elsewhere.

I can't help with the Emacs part of your question, but Vista and higher
have true (though still a bit brain dead in some respects) symlinks.
Look at the 'mklink' command.

You'll need a privilege that isn't granted to users by default (silly
decision #1), and while you can change that, for a one-off thing it's
easier to just elevate yourself when opening the command prompt. Also
note that Windows symlinks are specific to either pointing to a file or
a directory, so you'll have to explicitly tell 'mklink' that you want a
directory symlink.


On XP and 2000 (and also Vista and higher) you also have both hard links
and something called "directory junctions" available. (Windows is
capable of creating hard links to directories. Presumably you have to be
careful not to shoot yourself in the foot by creating a cycle.) I think
'mklink' may create hard links too though I'm not sure; for directory
junctions, there are a couple third-party utilities, e.g. Mark
Russinovich's 'junction':
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

Evan



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