Windows guest overwrites symbolic links in shared folders (not always)

[vordavoss]

Host: Ubuntu 10.10
Guest: Windows XP SP3
VirtualBox: 4.1.0 r73009
Guest Additions: 4.1.0 r73009

When i write some files into the guest machine, and the files are symbolic links in the host machine, in some cases the symbolic links are not maintained and are replaced by a copy of the original file. This not always happens, only with certain programs.

Example:

/home/user/shared : Shared folder between host and guest
/home/user/real/file1.txt : Txt file in host machine
/home/user/real/file2.xls : Excel file in host machine
/home/user/shared/file1.txt : Symbolic link to file1.txt
/home/user/shared/file2.xls : Symbolic link to file2.txt

Before:

/home/user/shared$ ls -l file*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user     25 2010-12-22 10:31 file1.txt -> /home/user/real/file1.txt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user     25 2010-12-22 10:31 file2.xls -> /home/user/real/file2.txt

Then, i open file1.txt in the windows guest machine with notepad, edit it and save before closing. And open file2.xls with Microsoft Excel, and do the same, edit, save and close.

Then, that is what i get:

/home/user/shared$ ls -l file*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user         25 2010-12-22 10:39 file1.txt -> /home/user/real/file1.txt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user     192512 2010-12-22 10:39 file2.xls

The txt file remains as a link and the real file it's correctly updated. But the excel file link its replaced by an updated copy of the file, and the original file in /home/user/real isn't updated.

This bug also occurs in previous versions of Virtualbox.

[jcasas]

Still happens in VirtualBox 4.1.12.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.