v0.5.2

Fixed

• The app launches without installing the Windows App Runtime
  separately. Both the Portable zip and the Setup were built
  framework-dependent on the Windows App SDK — SelfContained=true only
  bundled the .NET runtime, so at launch the bootstrapper demanded a
  system-wide "Windows App Runtime 1.7" (MSIX >= 7000.522.1444.0) and
  aborted with "Required components of the Windows App Runtime are
  missing" when it wasn't present, or when only an older 1.7 servicing
  build was installed. The build is now WindowsAppSDKSelfContained, so
  the Windows App Runtime ships inside the app folder and PowerLink runs
  out-of-the-box with nothing else to install. The Portable zip and Setup
  grow ~30–40 MB as a result.

Full Changelog: v0.5.1...v0.5.2

v0.5.1

Fixed (release pipeline)

• Releases now ship a delta package again. The vpk download github
  step fetched the prior release's *-full.nupkg into vpk's default
  folder, but vpk pack --outputDir velopack-output only scans
  velopack-output. Pack therefore never saw the previous release and
  every build shipped full-only, with no delta — forcing users to
  re-download the whole app on each update. The download step now writes
  to --outputDir velopack-output so pack finds the prior *-full.nupkg
  and computes a proper *-delta.nupkg.

What's Changed

• README: refresh screenshots and copy for junction support by @dawidope in #3

Full Changelog: v0.5.0...v0.5.1

v0.5.0

First release that handles directory junctions end-to-end. Junctions
are NTFS folder pointers — same purpose as symlinks for directories, but
unlike symlinks they need no admin and no Developer Mode. They're the
right tool for "make this folder appear at another path on the same
machine," and they're now first-class citizens in PowerLink.

Added

• Junction page (new sidebar entry between Clone and Inspector).
  Pick a target folder, pick the parent folder where the junction
  appears, hit Create. The link name is auto-derived from the target's
  basename and editable. Optional "allow missing target" toggle for
  intentional dangling junctions (deploy-script pattern).
• Inspector now lists junctions alongside hardlinks. Two stacked
  sections — Hardlinks (N) and Junctions (N, X dangling) — both
  expandable. Each junction row shows the link path, target path, and
  status (OK / dangling). Per-row Repair (pick a new target) and Delete
  (removes only the reparse point — never touches the target).
• Explorer integration for junctions across all three menu sites:
  • Classic right-click on a folder: "PowerLink: Create junction
    pointing at this folder" (opens the App pre-filled).
  • Classic right-click on a folder when something is picked:
    "PowerLink: Drop as junction here" (symmetric with Drop-as-hardlink).
  • Right-drag a folder onto another folder: under a single
    "PowerLink" submenu, "Junction here" appears next to "Clone tree
    here (hardlinks)". Right-drag a file: "Hardlink here" alone.
    The submenu groups everything under one parent so the drop menu
    stays uncluttered next to Copy/Move/Create shortcut.
  • Win11 modern menu (sparse MSIX): "Drop as junction here" and
    "Create junction pointing at this..." added to the cascade.
• CLI: powerlink junction {create|info|delete|repair} and
  powerlink drop-junction <target>. info exits 0 (OK), 2 (dangling),
  1 (error). delete refuses non-junctions to prevent rmdir'ing a real
  directory by mistake. repair overwrites reparse data atomically.

Changed

• Drop-handler menu is now a 'PowerLink' submenu instead of two
  top-level entries. Single visible "PowerLink >" cascades to the
  applicable actions for the current selection.
• Inspector page renamed to "Link inspector" internally — the title
  and intro now cover both hardlinks and junctions. Sidebar entry stays
  "Inspector" so muscle memory still works.
• Settings → Explorer context menu copy mentions junctions; the
  drag-and-drop description lists all three drop actions.

Fixed (safety-critical)

• scan / clone / dedup continue to skip reparse points by default
  — now locked in by tests. Previous releases happened to do the right
  thing because EnumerationOptions.AttributesToSkip = ReparsePoint
  was already set, but nothing protected against a casual removal of
  that flag. Three regression tests now cover: self-referential junction
  cycles don't deadlock the scan, junctions inside a scanned tree
  aren't silently followed, and clone never hardlinks content reached
  through a junction (which would let a later dedup rewrite the
  junction's target into a hardlink to another copy — silent semantic
  corruption).

Internal

• Win32Junction wrapper: DeviceIoControl FSCTL_SET/GET_REPARSE_POINT
  with manual IO_REPARSE_TAG_MOUNT_POINT buffer layout, NT-path
  \??\ prefix for substitute name, dangling-target detection,
  long-path support, UNC-target rejection (junctions can't resolve
  network paths). 19 xUnit tests across happy/edge/error cases.
• JunctionScanner: manual recursive walk that captures
  reparse-point directories without descending into them. 4 tests
  verify cycle safety + dangling detection.
• QueryContextMenuHResult helper extracted to ShellExtUtils with
  5 new C++ tests in the framework-free test exe — locks in the
  "max offset + 1, NOT count" contract for the new CMD_JUNCTION = 2
  offset in the drop handler.

What's Changed

• overlay: red-tinted Windows shortcut arrow for hardlinks by @dawidope in #1
• Add directory junction support by @dawidope in #2

New Contributors

• @dawidope made their first contribution in #1

Full Changelog: v0.4.2...v0.5.0

v0.4.2

Real fix for the "Clone tree here" issue v0.4.1 missed.

Fixed

• "Clone tree here" actually works now. The 7-Zip dialog was not a v0.4.0
  regression as v0.4.1's revert assumed — it was a pre-existing bug in
  PowerLinkDropHandler::QueryContextMenu. The handler returned the count
  of items added (per the obvious-but-wrong reading) instead of the
  documented largest command-id offset used, plus one. With folder drops
  the only inserted item was at offset 1 (CMD_CLONE), but we returned 1
  instead of 2. Windows then advanced the next chained drop handler's
  idCmdFirst by 1 — colliding our id 4097 with the next handler's id
  4097. Visually the user saw "PowerLink: Clone tree here" but the click
  routed to whichever later handler had claimed the same id (7-Zip on the
  reporter's machine). Now we track the actual max offset used and return
  that plus one.

  Hardlink-on-file drops happened to ship working because CMD_HARDLINK
  is offset 0 and count==1==max+1 for that case — the wrong formula
  produced the right number by coincidence.

Added (internal)

• DropHandler now writes Debug-build diagnostic traces to
  %TEMP%\powerlink-menu.log (the same file ModernMenuCommand uses), with
  a [drop] tag. No effect on Release builds — pure no-op.

Full Changelog: v0.4.1...v0.4.2

v0.4.1

Hotfix.

Fixed

• "Clone tree here" no longer pops up an unrelated app dialog. v0.4.0
  routed this drop verb through cmd /c start "" /b "<cli>" ... to add
  process breakaway for an MSIX-surrogate scenario that doesn't actually
  apply to the classic drag-and-drop handler (which is hosted in
  Explorer.exe, not in dllhost.exe). On at least one configuration the
  start indirection fell through to ShellExecute and surfaced a 7-Zip
  dialog instead of launching PowerLink.Cli. Reverted to the direct
  CreateProcessW call this verb shipped with through v0.3.x.

Full Changelog: v0.4.0...v0.4.1

v0.4.0

Cleanup batch driven by a multi-component code review. Most of the work is
internal hardening — what end users will notice is fewer silent failures
when something goes wrong.

Fixed (safety-critical)

• Dedup never loses a file when the hardlink step fails. The previous
  delete-then-link sequence permanently removed a duplicate when
  CreateHardLink happened to fail (AV holding the file, permission denied,
  etc.). It now stages a rename, creates the hardlink, then deletes the
  stage; on failure the original file is restored automatically. If even
  the restore fails the staged file's path is logged and surfaced so the
  data is recoverable manually.

Fixed (Explorer integration)

• Long paths no longer break the modern context-menu actions. Paths past
  ~316 characters used to silently truncate, dropping the closing quote of
  the launched command and producing a malformed cmd line that the receiving
  exe parsed wrong.
• "Clone tree here" works on machines using the modern AppX registration.
  The drag-and-drop CMD_CLONE path was missing the desktop-app breakaway
  attribute, so the spawned PowerLink.Cli inherited package identity and
  exited with 0x80070032. Both menu sites now share the same launcher.
• DllCanUnloadNow no longer reports unloadable while a lock is held.
  An unbalanced LockServer(FALSE) from a defective COM client used to
  drive the global ref count below zero (signed underflow). Decrement is
  now floored at zero.
• Long install paths are detected. GetModuleFileNameW truncation now
  loops with a growing buffer instead of treating a truncated path as
  success.

Fixed (CLI)

• Progress output goes to stderr — dedup ... | tee log.txt no longer
  interleaves hundreds of progress ticks with the structured stdout report.
  Live spinner still appears in the terminal even when stdout is redirected.
• scan, dedup, clone now print a one-line error instead of a raw
  stack trace when something escapes the engine. Exit code is 1, or
  130 on Ctrl+C.
• drop shows progress when the picked source is a directory. Previously
  it silently blocked until the entire clone finished.

Fixed (install / update)

• The post-install/post-update shell-extension junction setup is robust
  against partial failures. A pre-existing real (non-junction) directory
  at the stable shell path now produces a descriptive error instead of an
  opaque IOException that aborted the Velopack install hook silently.
  Hook exceptions are caught and written to
  %LocalAppData%\PowerLink\shell-junction-error.log rather than killing
  the install.
• Cold starts re-ensure the junction. A normal launch (not first-install,
  not post-update) used to skip junction setup. If something deleted the
  junction externally the shell extension was silently dead until the next
  update.
• CTS handle leak fixed. Repeated scan/execute/run cycles in the App
  used to orphan the previous CancellationTokenSource; we now dispose
  the prior instance before allocating a new one.

Fixed (release pipeline)

• vpk download failures no longer mask shipping a broken delta. The
  previous "swallow any non-zero exit" pattern would have produced a release
  with a missing or corrupt delta nupkg on auth/network errors. The
  workflow now pre-checks for prior releases via gh and treats a vpk
  download failure as a hard error when one is expected to succeed.

Added (internal)

• C++ utility test exe at tests/PowerLink.ShellExt.Tests. Runs in CI
  before any other build step; non-zero exit fails the workflow.
• Curated release notes via this CHANGELOG.md. The workflow extracts
  the section matching the pushed tag and uses it as the GitHub release
  body.

Full Changelog: v0.3.1...v0.4.0

v0.3.1

Full Changelog: v0.3.0...v0.3.1

v0.3.0

Full Changelog: v0.2.1...v0.3.0

v0.2.1

Full Changelog: v0.2.0...v0.2.1

v0.2.0

Full Changelog: v0.1.1...v0.2.0