Want easier access to the SharePoint files in the file system? Something like c:\wss\bin\stsadm.exe, without messing around with your installation?
The first thing I do when setting up a box or virtual machine with SharePoint is to create a junction point in the file system, <drive_letter>:\wss pointing to the SharePoint Hive in the file system. Then I can use <drive_letter>:\wss\bin\stsadm.exe or <drive_letter>:\wss\template\features to browse the features. This works on the command line and in Explorer as well as in any other application. It is a functionality provided by NTFS.
On Vista or higher, you can use mklink on the command line:
mklink /J <drive_letter>:\wss “<drive_letter>:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12”
Otherwise – older operating systems do not have mklink –, go to live.sysinternals.com and use junction.exe.
It will then look like this on cmd.exe
![image[1]](http://blog.cloudsiders.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/image11.png "image[1]"){kind=small}
The original path and the installation path of SharePoint are entirely unaffected. You can add (and remove) the junction point at any time! This is just an additional directory shortcut and one of the nice features of NTFS.