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Git for Windows apparently now implements support for symbolic links on NTFS filesystems. (See this git wiki page.)

On windows, creating symlinks is an administrator privilege by default. The wiki page explains how to give the necessary permissions to normal users. (Under the heading: "Allowing non-administrators to create symbolic links")

My problem is, that even after following this, git does not create symlinks but fails with:

error: unable to create symlink somefile.h: Permission denied

The wiki page mentions the need for UAC elevation, but the UAC prompt is never triggered.

Has anybody gotten this to work?

ARF
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  • but are you ask UAC elevation ? – RbMm Mar 20 '17 at 14:39
  • @RbMm As I wrote, I am never asked for UAC elevation. I do not know why the UAC prompt is never triggered. – ARF Mar 20 '17 at 14:41
  • it and not must be, of you direct not ask – RbMm Mar 20 '17 at 14:42
  • @RbMm I am afraid I do not understand what you write. – ARF Mar 20 '17 at 14:42
  • add manifest to your app with `` - will be uac promt. look like you nothing know about how uac worked – RbMm Mar 20 '17 at 14:44
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    Git 2.23 might help: https://stackoverflow.com/a/57084394/6309 – VonC Jul 17 '19 at 21:42
  • @ARF several years later, and I am having the exact same experience. I followed the wiki, and yet I get the same "permission denied". I can run a terminal As Administrator, and then it succeeds (I can clone a git repo with links that properly turn into windows-style links, and my application behaves as I wish when it is cloned this way). But I do not wish to Run As Administrator in the terminal where I invoke my git commands. Would still love an answer to this Q.... – pestophagous May 04 '21 at 16:59
  • Moderate progress/success. Ok, so on Windows 10 I just searched for "enable developer mode", and once I enabled Developer Mode in my Windows settings I am able to git clone with symlinks as my normal user. On the one hand, this does represent "success". However, I do worry that by running in this exotic mode, I will be out of touch with what a normal Windows user will experience, and therefore be out of touch with my customers. But I guess that just means I need a clean customer-test machine, which of course I already have. So I guess I succeeded :/ – pestophagous May 04 '21 at 17:30

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