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I observe some strange behavior of Windows Explorer in folders having in path symlinks to a mapped network drive. Here's an example.

I have a network drive mapped to G: and a symlink testing pointing to a folder on that network drive: 1

Here's the "New" context submenu that I have right after following the symlink: 2

Looks ok. And here's the same submenu in the mocking subfolder: 3

The options list is much shorter. For comparison, the same submenu in the same forlder reached directly: 4

The "New" context submenu is cut off in the mocking folder when it's reached via symlink but it's ok in the same folder reached directly.

What's the cause? And how can I have the submenu not reduced after following a symlink?

vect
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  • I am not going to research this right now.. but why are you trying to use a mapped drive in the first place? Mapped drives are just another layer of worthless and confuse many programs due to file system vs functionality. You can create a symbolic link for directories using the share DIRECTLY.. like this `mklink /D D:\whatever_you_like \\network\share` .. I myself would try this method first and not worry about shortcomings of the explorer (pandora's box). – Señor CMasMas Oct 18 '21 at 12:32
  • @SeñorCMasMas in this case it doesn't matter whether the network share is symlinked directly or via network drive. Explorer behaves the same in both cases. – vect Oct 18 '21 at 12:59
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    Fair enough Mr. vect. I can tell you what is happening under the hood but not actually WHY (which is why I am not posting an answer). It might help you resolve the problem yourself. When you right click THAT folder, the explorers shell extension handler is determining that it isn't a directory, instead.. that it is a folder (aka, no file system, no clusters, etc). [This post](https://superuser.com/questions/310671/in-hkcr-what-is-difference-between-directory-and-folder-in-context-menu-config) talks about it quite a bit. I know not an answer but might be of some help. – Señor CMasMas Oct 18 '21 at 14:15

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