What is the difference between the links this tool creates and the shortcuts that Windows supports out of the box?
In a nutshell, a shortcut is just a file that contains the path of the target that it points to. It’s up to each individual application to decide how it wants to handle the shortcut, i.e. follow the “redirect” or work with the shortcut file itself. A symbolic link or junction works actually much the same, except that is is resolved by the kernel. Applications are not aware that they are dealing with a symbol link, and do not need to be. You’re links will just work. For example, try opening a folder shortcut in Windows Explorer: note that it really just opens the target folder the shortcut is pointing to. Try opening a symbolic link to a folder: The contents of the target actually appear as if they were inside the link. Hard links, finally, work very differently. They cause one and the same file to appear in multiple directories. All the entries point to the same piece of data on your disk and are completely equal, i.e. there is, strictly speaking, no actual link that “points somewhere
