#windows

Every OS hides this somewhere different, and half the guides online still give the Windows 10 path. Here's where the setting actually lives in 2026, plus the auto-disable option that beats turning it off outright.

A Windows shortcut is a file that contains a location. A symbolic link is a location. That difference is invisible in Explorer and decisive to every program that is not Explorer, which is why a shortcut that works when you double-click it fails the moment a script tries to read through it.