how do I run FreeFileSync as administrator so I can copy symbolic links
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 15 Mar 2025
I want my sync jobs to copy symbolic links to my destination drive just like it would any other file with the same name. If a non-symbolic link file exists on the destination drive and a symbolic link (with the exact same name) is on the source drive, I want FreeFileSync to replace the file on the destination drive with the symlink from the source drive, just like it would with any other file that has changed. But it keeps displaying an error message telling me it can't. I also know that I need to run as administrator to copy the symlink to the destination drive, but I can't figure out how to run FeeFileSync as administrator unless I do it from the shortcut. But then the scheduled runs don't run as administrator. So many posts here about run as administrator, but not a single one answers this question. Please, I don't want to be educated on the pros/cons of symlinks and running as administrator. I just want a straightforward answer to my question. Of course, if anyone has questions and wants to learn about symlinks, I'm happy to provide answers, if I know.
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- Posts: 10
- Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Can't anyone answer my question? I have figured out how to run as administrator, but the solution is fraught with problems.
- Posts: 4905
- Joined: 11 Jun 2019
Your picture is blank and it's hard to guess what the issue is.
Running as admin allows symlink usage, but I'm guessing you are syncing to a network location, which means this changed user context then prohibits access to that location.
i think the reason you haven't found the answer is that there isn't one. You need to run FFS as an admin for symlink access, but also can't run as admin because you lose access. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Running as admin allows symlink usage, but I'm guessing you are syncing to a network location, which means this changed user context then prohibits access to that location.
i think the reason you haven't found the answer is that there isn't one. You need to run FFS as an admin for symlink access, but also can't run as admin because you lose access. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 15 Mar 2025
You are really frustrating me. Stop guessing and trying to assume what people meant rather than just assuming that they meant exactly what they said. I'm not trying to do anything with a network location. I have two simple Seagate hard drives connected directly to my computer and I'm simply trying to sync them. The problem is my source drive has Symlinks on it and when I try to sync to my destination drive that has a file with the same name it puts up an error message telling me that it can't overwrite a file with the same name even though that's exactly what it does with every other file that's not a Symlink. Why can't freefilesync do the same thing it does with other files? The way it's currently working I have to go and manually delete the file from the destination drive. I could live with that but there's 400,000 files on my drives and I can't do that manually for each one. I don't know why my graphic isn't showing but it was just a screenshot of the error message that really added no information except to prove that I was getting an error message.
It looks like I'm going to have to write code that's going to iterate through all the 400,000 files on my source drive and each time it finds a SymLink delete the matching file on the destination drive so that the sync can happen. I'm pretty sure this is a bug in freefilesync, but I wanted to confirm that before I report it. It would be such an easy bug for them to fix.
It looks like I'm going to have to write code that's going to iterate through all the 400,000 files on my source drive and each time it finds a SymLink delete the matching file on the destination drive so that the sync can happen. I'm pretty sure this is a bug in freefilesync, but I wanted to confirm that before I report it. It would be such an easy bug for them to fix.
