How to create symbolic links with Windows Explorer?

Quick tip: here is how to create symlinks in Windows without using any command line tool.

1) If you have Python installed, create mklinkgui.py:

import win32clipboard    # pip install pywin32 if you haven't installed it already
import sys, os, subprocess
fname = sys.argv[1]
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
filenames = win32clipboard.GetClipboardData(win32clipboard.CF_HDROP)
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
for filename in filenames:
    base = os.path.basename(filename)
    link = os.path.join(fname, base)
    subprocess.Popen('mklink %s "%s" "%s"' % ('/d' if os.path.isdir(filename) else '', link, filename), shell=True)

2) Open regedit and

• Create a key named Mklink here in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell. In this key create a subkey command containing the string "C:\Python27\pythonw.exe" "C:\pathto\mklinkgui.py" "%1".

• Create a key named Mklink here in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell. In this key create a subkey command containing the string "C:\Python27\pythonw.exe" "C:\pathto\mklinkgui.py" "%v" (please note the %v here).

How to use it?

• First click on the file(s) or folder(s) that you want to create a symbolic link to. Do CTRL+C or Copy. (It works with multiple files!)

• Right click on the folder where you want to drop a link, choose Mklink here, done!