While Ubuntu (Wine) and Windows can both run uTorrent, it’s not that easy to keep one copy. Say, for example, that you want to use uTorrent on a Flash drive (USB stick). You run with the problem of having a Z: drive in Wine, which most likely won’t be anything like the structure in Windows (even if you simulate or change the drive letter.)
For example, I have set a partition under a folder in Ubuntu, so the torrent destination path in Wine is Z:\partition\Torrents
In Windows, I can only point a drive letter to a folder, but not the other way around!
I wondered if Windows had anything similar to symbolic links. I figured I could point a drive letter to a folder, then put a symbolic link to the folder, to simulate the path in Wine.
Apparently, it’s not well-known, but there are symbolic links in Windows. They’re not documented, and you need to buy a Microsoft software kit, which includes special tool to create them. They’re also called something else: junction points.
Fortunately, there’s a freeware GUI program that can do this for you: Junction Link Magic. It’s a very small download!
Create a virtual drive
subst Z: C:\vdrive
The vdrive folder is a placeholder, we’ll never actually see vdrive. Create a folder called partition inside Z: (C:\vdrive\partition).
Use Junction Link Magic
Create a link from Z:\partition to the actual partition drive.
When you browse Z:\partition, you should see your Torrents folder.
Now, you can safely run uTorrent from the USB stick, and it won’t notice a thing!
Tags: Linux, Ubuntu, uTorrent, Windows XP
