Replace Windows symlinks with volta run scripts#1755
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chriskrycho merged 3 commits intovolta-cli:mainfrom Jul 9, 2024
Merged
Replace Windows symlinks with volta run scripts#1755chriskrycho merged 3 commits intovolta-cli:mainfrom
volta run scripts#1755chriskrycho merged 3 commits intovolta-cli:mainfrom
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Using symlinks on Windows requires that our users enable Developer mode, which isn't always possible. For directory links, there is an easy solution: NTFS Junctions. These work the same as symlinks but do not require administrator privileges nor developer mode.
Rather than using symlinks, which require administrator privileges or developer mode on Windows, we can instead use small scripts that call out to 'volta run' to actually handle the execution of 3rd party binaries. This also adds a migration to a new v4 layout, which allows Windows installs to migrate immediately to using the script-based shims.
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Hey @charlespierce, great work! Did you find time to check how it affects performance? I'd be happy to help if some more work is needed to go forward with it, let me know. |
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Was able to get some testing done, and from what I can tell it doesn't have any major effect on performance, so this should be good to go 🎉 |
chriskrycho
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Jul 9, 2024
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| pub fn shim_file(&self, toolname: &str) -> PathBuf { | ||
| // On Windows, shims are created as `<name>.cmd` since they | ||
| // are thin scripts that use `volta run` to execute the command | ||
| #[cfg(windows)] | ||
| let toolname = format!("{}{}", toolname, ".cmd"); | ||
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| path_buf!(self.shim_dir.clone(), toolname) | ||
| } |
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For posterity, this is the only difference between the v3 and v4 layouts, and this is the diff:
pub fn shim_file(&self, toolname: &str) -> PathBuf {
- path_buf!(self.shim_dir.clone(), executable(toolname))
+ // On Windows, shims are created as `<name>.cmd` since they
+ // are thin scripts that use `volta run` to execute the command
+ #[cfg(windows)]
+ let toolname = format!("{}{}", toolname, ".cmd");
+
+ path_buf!(self.shim_dir.clone(), toolname)
}
chriskrycho
approved these changes
Jul 9, 2024
alexbestul
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Sep 2, 2025
Developer Mode is no longer required as of volta-cli/volta#1755 and https://github.com/volta-cli/volta/releases/tag/v2.0.0
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Closes #1397
Info
volta run <package>.Changes
junctionto create NTFS junctions instead of directory symlinks (this part is directly copied from No more symlinks on Windows #1552)shimmodule to have different implementations ofcreatefor Unix and Windows..cmdscript that callsvolta runfor the shim. It also continues to create a custom Git Bash script, though that script is updated to now callvolta rundirectly, instead of calling the existing shim viacmd.exev4layout since the shim file on Windows is now<binary>.cmdinstead of<binary>.exe.v4that removes and regenerates the shims, making sure that the old symlinks are removed. The migration also updates any existing directory symlinks to use junctions as well.Tested
volta runapproach ⚡