Differences between symbolic directory link and directory junction?

[RyanH]

I'm trying to grasp what the major differences are between a directory junction and a symbolic directory link. Neither type takes up any extra disk space. Both seem to point to the target directory, and unlike hard file links, because the data isn't duplicated, when the target directory is deleted the linked directory doesn't point to the data and becomes non-functioning. I know that symbolic links for both files an directories work across different filesystems as well as on networked drives but that's the only difference I can understand that makes it functionally different from a directory junction. I'm talking specifically about the mklink commands given to Windows NT OS's I'm not sure if other file systems handle these two link types differently.

 

[devil22]

I think that's pretty much it, symbolic links work across file systems and networked resources, junctions don't. There's a couple paragraphs on the differences in Windows Internals 5th edition (book) to that effect.

wikipedia on directory junctions/symbolic links:

Windows Vista supports a new symbolic link capability that replaces junction points in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. They are designed to aid in migration and application compatibility with UNIX operating systems.[4]
Unlike a junction point, a symbolic link can also point to a file or remote SMB network path. Additionally, the NTFS symbolic link implementation provides full support for cross-filesystem links. However, the functionality enabling cross-host symbolic links requires that the remote system also support them, which effectively limits their support to Windows Vista and later Windows operating systems.