git-annex/doc/design/assistant/windows.mdwn
2013-05-11 17:19:43 -04:00

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See [[todo/windows_support]]..
## symlinks
Apparently new versions of Windows have something very like symlinks.
(Or really, 3 or so things not entirely unlike symlinks and all different.)
Stackoverflow has some details.
NTFS supports symbolic links two different ways: an [[!wikipedia NTFS symbolic link]] and an [[!wikipedia NTFS_junction_point]]. The former seems like the closest analogue to POSIX symlinks.
The windows port will not use symlinks. It will only support direct mode.
## POSIX
Lots of ifdefs and pain to deal with POSIX calls in the code base.
Or I could try to use Cygwin.
## Deeper system integration
[NTFS Reparse Points](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365503%28v=VS.85%29.aspx) allow a program to define how the OS will interpret a file or directory in arbitrary ways. This requires writing a file system filter.
## Developement environment
Someone wrote in to say:
> For Windows Development you can easily qualify
> for Bizspark - http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
>
> This will get you 100% free Windows OS licenses and
> Dev tools, plus a free Azure account for cloud testing.
> (You can also now deploy Linux VMs to Azure as well)
> No money required at all.