symbolic links - core.symlinks=true does not work - you might want to revisit problem --

[aabatpurdue]

Contrary to your documentation ala making symlinks
core.symlinks=true does not work for me

but setting the environment variable
enable MSYS=winsymlinks:nativestrict does work.

In my HOME directory:
$ touch a
$ ln -s a b
$ ls -l a b
-rw-r--r-- 1 aab 197121 0 Sep 16 21:19 a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 aab 197121 1 Sep 16 21:19 b -> a
$ rm a b
The Command Prompt dir a b agrees with the above. See "interesting things" below.

Setup

• Which version of Git for Windows are you using? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ git --version --build-options
git version 2.18.0.windows.1
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: cd1a74f
sizeof-long: 4

• Which version of Windows are you running? Vista, 7, 8, 10? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.285]

• What options did you set as part of the installation? Or did you choose the
  defaults?

Don't remember

** insert your machine's response here **
$ cat /etc/install-options.txt
Editor Option: VIM
Path Option: Cmd
SSH Option: OpenSSH
CURL Option: OpenSSL
CRLF Option: CRLFAlways
Bash Terminal Option: MinTTY
Performance Tweaks FSCache: Enabled
Use Credential Manager: Enabled
Enable Symlinks: Enabled

• Any other interesting things about your environment that might be related
  to the issue you're seeing?

I disabled the Git for Windows core.symlinks=true option because it was not working. Just for grins, I did
export MSYS=winsymlinks:nativestrict
and voila no problems with real symlinks.

For me the ONLY way to get real symlinks on the entire system for any condition REQUIRES enabling
settings -> Update & Security -> For Developers -> Developer Mode
Unfortunately, this requires a sysadmin to do so. The account that I normally use does have admin privileges enabled. I also created a vanilla user that has a minimal set of privileges. I have no problems making symlinks with either account.

FWIW - As a test, removed all policy permissions and was still able to make symlinks.

• Which terminal/shell are you running Git from? e.g Bash/CMD/PowerShell/othe
  bash

• What commands did you run to trigger this issue? If you can provide a
  Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example
  this will help us understand the issue.

** insert your commands here **
See short example in first section above. Without MSYS, b is a copy of a. core.symlinks=true has no effect. Without `Developer Mode" enabled, no real symlinks can be made,

• What did you expect to occur after running these commands?
  n/a
• What actually happened instead?
  n/a

[dscho]

ln -s is not a Git command, so it should not come as a surprise that it is unaffected by the Git config.

[aabatpurdue]

Ummm. So what does core.symlinks=true get me? I agree about ln -s ...

[dscho]

what does core.symlinks=true get me?

That git.exe will check out symbolic links stored in repositories.

FWIW I am not completely certain that I was righ about ln -s... while it is not a Git command, I would think that it makes sense to call Git Bash with the previously-mentioned MSYS=winsymlinks:nativestrict. Which means we would have to edit the shortcut. Maybe even edit git-bash.exe...

Would you be interested in that? I am too short on time to drive this, it would need to be you...

[aabatpurdue]

Goofed - didn't mean to close it.

[dscho]

@aabatpurdue you surely meant to answer, though, right?

[dscho]

Right? Oh well, apparently not.