[New-bugs-announce] [issue45710] Junction/symbolic folder access error on Windows 11

[Fabio Storino]

New submission from Fabio Storino <fstorino at yahoo.com>:

After upgrading to Windows 11 I can't run Python scripts from a junction folder anymore. Everything else works as before on that folder.

Background: I have Minecraft installed on a second volume (E:\Games\Minecraft). I created a junction folder at %appdata%\.minecraft pointing to that folder. When I try to run a Python script from that folder I get this error:

---
python: can't open file 'C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\test.py': [Errno 22] Invalid argument
---

When trying to debug in VS Code, I get a more detailed error:

---
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.9_3.9.2032.0_x64
    __qbz5n2kfra8p0\lib\ntpath.py", line 647, in realpath
    path = _getfinalpathname(path)
OSError: [WinError 649] The create operation failed because the name
    contained at least one mount point which resolves to a volume to
    which the specified device object is not attached:
    'c:\\Users\\xxxxx\\AppData\\Roaming\\.minecraft'
---

When trying to open that junction folder in Python's IDLE I get the following error message:

---
[Window Title] Location is not available

[Content] C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft is not accessible.

The create operation failed because the name contained at least one
mount point which resolves to a volume to which the specified device
object is not attached.
---

I tried creating a symbolic directory link instead of a junction, but got the same message.

I can run the same scripts directly from the target folder (E:\Games\Minecraft).

I can also run them from the junction folder from an Ubuntu terminal on WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

I tried this with Python 3.9 and 3.10 (WSL2 uses Python 3.8).

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components: Windows
messages: 405677
nosy: fstorino, paul.moore, steve.dower, tim.golden, zach.ware
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Junction/symbolic folder access error on Windows 11
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.10, Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue45710>
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