I need to symbolically link every directory and file in a target directory

March 14, 2022

Directories and files could change in the target, so the script needs to parse the directory on each run. Say c:\PS\ contains all of the targets and c:\DS contains all the links. I have tried something like

$files = Get-ChildItem "c:\ps"
foreach ($file in $files){
New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "C:\DS\" -Target $file.FullName
}

My attempts are falling short.

>Solution :

There are mainly 2 issues with your code, the first one, $path is not defined and the second one, double-quotes in "c:\DS\$d.Name" are not allowing $d.Name to expand, you can use Subexpression operator $( ) for this.

$dir = Get-ChildItem c:\ps\ -Directory
foreach($d in $dir) {
    New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "c:\DS\$($d.Name)" -Target $d.FullName
}

Above should create a symlink in the C:\DS\ directory where each link has the name of their target folder. One thing to consider, this could require you to run PowerShell with admin permissions.