how to symlink in win 7 (to share datastore between 2 different game folders)

Recently switched to windows (being a long time linux user) 7 to give isboxer a go. Now I want to share 1 datastore file between 2 different wow folders. In linux there is a thing called symbolic linking, but no clue how to achieve this on msdos 7 .. err windows 7.

Basically when I play my main account solo I have it set to windowed fullscreen. At the same time I like to have an alt open on another account on my left monitor in windowed mode. Since I haven't found a way how to swap between windowed and windowed fullscreen mode on the same folder, I just went with a 2nd folder. Loading isboxer or any other software to do this is not really an option for me.

Obviously since I went with 2 different wow folders, crafters on my main account don't see what alt banker has in stock/on AH. Thus I'd like to share the datastore files between both.

Any clue?

mklink is what you want. Be aware that the syntax is reversed from the ln command (target source vs source target) if remember correctly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=23338

I don't think using the same datastore will work as the AH/bank addons only report things on the characters on the same account (and not even that in some cases). Note that if you do this, you can link (junction is the correct name in the context of mklink) the WoW\DATA\ and WoW\Interface\ folders and additionally all of the executables in the main folder (.exe, .dll, .manifest, etc.) and you will only need to update your main account once. That's what I did on mine and it worked very well and made updating a painless process.

Code:

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C:\Users\xxx>mklink
Creates a symbolic link.

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

        /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
                symbolic link.
        /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
        /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
        Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
        Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
                refers to.

C:\Users\xxx>

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[edit] If you decide to link the executables, those need to be hard links, not symbolic ones.

I love that link shell extension. So easy to use if you have to change your hardware around at all. You can bulk link multiple files or folders all in one click.