---
id: 1539
title: "Why Windows can’t follow WSL symlinks"
source_domain: blog.trailofbits.com
source_url: "https://blog.trailofbits.com/2024/02/12/why-windows-cant-follow-wsl-symlinks/"
published_at: "2024-02-12T14:30:25Z"
tags: ["linux", "windows", "reverse-engineering", "wsl", "kernel", "symlink", "filesystem"]
phying_url: "https://phying.com/item/1539"
lang: en
---

# Why Windows can’t follow WSL symlinks

## Summary

Yarden Shafir explains why Windows cannot follow symlinks created in WSL: they are LX symlinks stored as Linux-style files, so Windows sees an unhandled reparse point and open operations fail.

## Intelligence Metadata

- **Sources:** blog.trailofbits.com
- **Published:** 2024-02-12T14:30:25Z
- **Original:** https://blog.trailofbits.com/2024/02/12/why-windows-cant-follow-wsl-symlinks/
- **Phying News:** https://phying.com/item/1539