Creating a symbolic link in Windows 7/8

The ability to make symbolic links in Linux is well-known. The same functionality can be achieved in Windows 7/8 by using a command line utility called mklink. Symbolic links are called junctions in Windows. The syntax for creating a symbolic link is as follows:

mklink /J [destination path] [source path]

For example, if I wanted to create a symbolic link inside 'C:\Users\bkraul\Documents' to a folder that resides on the E drive, 'E:\Documents\Books', the syntax would be:

mklink /J "C:\Users\bkraul\Documents\Books" "E:\Documents\Books"

After this, the operating system will treat the 'Books' directory as part of 'C:\Users\bkraul\Documents'.