PasteAsSyslinkWin

Copy files or folders and paste them as symlinks, hardlinks, or junctions
via the right-click context menu or from the command line.

AI was used heavily during development, with human review and testing of all code.
This is a personal tool I wanted and I'm sharing it in case it's useful to others.

How It Works

When you select files or folders in Explorer and press Ctrl+C,
Windows puts their paths (HDROP) on the clipboard.
PasteAsSyslinkWin reads those paths and creates symlinks at the destination folder using Windows mklink.

Because creating symlinks normally requires administrator privileges on Windows,
the tool uses a Windows Task Scheduler rule to elevate itself automatically
without showing a UAC prompt on every paste. If Task Scheduler is not available,
it falls back to a standard UAC prompt.

To keep this silent elevation safe, the tool uses a write challenge before elevating,
the current (non-elevated) process writes a temporary probe file inside the destination folder.
The elevated process only proceeds if it can verify that file,
proving the caller genuinely had write access to the target.
If the destination is not writable, no probe can be created
and the tool instead requires an explicit UAC prompt.
This prevents unprivileged callers from pointing the silent elevator at protected system folders.
Probe files are removed automatically after the operation (or by the elevated process as cleanup).

Features

• Right-click context menu ("Create Symlinks Here") for Windows 10 and 11 (show more menu)
• CLI tool for scripting and batch operations
• Clipboard integration copy files in Explorer, paste as symlinks
• Auto-elevation via Task Scheduler, no repeated UAC prompts
• Conflict resolution dialog to overwrite, rename, or skip when a file exists
• File symlinks, hardlinks, directory symlinks, and junctions all supported
• Wildcard/glob support patterns like C:\*\*.txt expand through subdirectories (if enabled)
• User or All Users install per-user install to %LOCALAPPDATA%, system-wide to Program Files

Installation

Option 1: Download the prebuilt executable (recommended)

Download mklinktool.exe from the Releases page of the repository, then run it once, the installer GUI opens on first run.

Option 2: Build from source

Requires uv and Python 3.10+.

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://codeberg.org/marvin1099/PasteAsSyslinkWin.git
   cd PasteAsSyslinkWin
   

2. Build. Easiest: double-click build.bat, it will build it automatically:

   build.bat
   

   To build and immediately run the executable (e.g. to open the installer GUI), double-click build-run.bat instead.

   If you prefer to run the steps manually (also requires 1.), run them in this order:

   uv sync
   uv run build.py
   

   (or uv run build.py --run to also launch the exe afterwards).

3. The executable is created at dist\mklinktool.exe with the custom icon baked in. Run it once, the installer GUI opens on first run.

Usage

Context Menu (Recommended)

After installation, right-click any folder in Explorer and select "Create Symlinks Here".
The tool will read any files you have copied to the clipboard and create symlinks in that folder.

• Windows 10: the entry appears directly in the context menu
• Windows 11: the entry appears under "Show more options" (Shift+F10)
  the modern context menu only shows shell-extension items, which requires a DLL (not used)

Command Line

After installation (with Add to PATH enabled),
the mklinktool command is available from the command line:

mklinktool [/flags] C:\source\* C:\destination

Commands:

Command	Description
/install, /i	Setup context menu + task scheduler
/uninstall, /u	Remove context menu + task scheduler
/resetconfig	Remove config only
/reconfigure	Remove config and re-run setup
/nogui	Skip GUI, install to the current user
/noguiall	Skip GUI, install for all users
/adminfree	Skip admin-needing operations instead of elevating
/help, /?	Show this help

Symlink flags:

Flag	Description
/f	File symlink (mklink default, no flag needed)
/d	Directory symlink (mklink /d)
/h	File hard link (mklink /h)
/j	Directory junction (mklink /j)
/w	Enable wildcard loop expansion
/m	Disable wildcard loop expansion

Clipboard control:

Flag	Description
/clip	Force include clipboard as additional sources
/noclip	Disable clipboard entirely

File sources use /f (symlink) or /h (hard link).
Folder sources use /d (directory symlink) or /j (junction).

Path logic: the last argument is always the destination folder.
All other arguments are source paths.
The clipboard is only used as a source, never as the destination.
With 2+ arguments the clipboard is ignored unless /clip is set.
With a single argument the clipboard provides the sources (disable with /noclip).

Examples:

mklinktool /w /h C:\source\*.txt C:\dest

Create file hard links for all .txt files.

mklinktool /j C:\source\subfolder C:\dest

Create a directory junction to the folder.

mklinktool /f /j C:\dest

Read from clipboard; create file symlinks and folder junctions.

Configuration

The tool stores its settings in mklinktool.conf alongside the executable:

[settings]
task = True
wildcardloops = False
scriptdefaultfileoptions = /f
scriptdefaultfolderoptions = /j
adminfileoptions = /f /h
adminfolderoptions = /d
allusers = False

• task: Use Task Scheduler for auto-elevation
• wildcardloops: Expand wildcards through subdirectories by default
• scriptdefaultfileopts / folderopts: Default link types for CLI use
• adminfileopts / folderopts: Which operations require admin elevation
• allusers: Whether the tool was installed for all users

Uninstalling

Run dist\mklinktool.exe /u to remove the context menu entries, Task Scheduler rule, PATH entry, and config files.

Project Structure

build.py           Build script (run: uv sync ; then: uv run build.py)
build.bat          Build only — double-click entry point
build-run.bat      Build and run — double-click entry point
src/
  main.py               Entry point and orchestration
  cli.py                Flag parsing
  config.py             INI configuration
  clipboard.py          HDROP + text clipboard via Windows API
  elevation.py          Task Scheduler auto-elevation + UAC fallback
  task_scheduler.py     schtasks create/check/run/delete + args IPC
  context_menu.py       Classic context menu registry entries
  installer.py          Interactive tkinter install wizard
  path_env.py           PATH management via registry
  pathresolver.py       Glob/wildcard path resolution
  symlink_ops.py        mklink execution + conflict dialog
  uninstall_registry.py Registry cleanup for uninstall
  writeback.py          Writeback socket + console hiding for elevated children

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11
• Python 3.10+ and uv (only when building from source)
• Administrator privileges for file symlinks and hardlinks to protected directories (junctions do not require elevation)