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If you have WSL2 installed (if not, see @Peeter Joot's answer) , you can easily clone a project with symlinks into a Windows directory.

To be explicit, the following project has 4 symlinks below the os/test/resources directory, 2 of which are broken by design: com-lihaoyi/os-lib, so it's not possible to clone using the cygwin or msys2 version of git.

From a WSL2 Ubuntu bash session, I was able to clone it into my C:\Users\username\workspaces folder.

cd /mnt/c/Users/username/workspace/ git clone https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib.git cd os-lib/ 

From a cygwin or msys2 session, you can verify that the symlinks are as expected:

# verify symlinks: ls -ltrad $(find os/test/resources -type l) lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 13 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-abs-symlink -> /doesnt/exist lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 6 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-symlink -> broken lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 11 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/file-symlink -> ../File.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 10 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/folder-symlink -> ../folder1 

As a side-effect, when I did git diff from cygwin, some file permissions had been changed from 644 to 744.

To restore file permissions:

git config --unset --local core.fileMode 

Finally:

$ git status On branch main Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'. nothing to commit, working tree clean 

If you have WSL2 installed (if not, see @Peeter Joot's answer) , you can easily clone a project with symlinks into a Windows directory.

To be explicit, the following project has 4 symlinks below the os/test/resources directory, 2 of which are broken by design: com-lihaoyi/os-lib, so it's not possible to clone using the cygwin or msys2 version of git.

From a WSL2 Ubuntu bash session, I was able to clone it into my C:\Users\username\workspaces folder.

cd /mnt/c/Users/username/workspace/ git clone https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib.git cd os-lib/ 

From a cygwin or msys2 session, you can verify that the symlinks are as expected:

# verify symlinks: ls -ltrad $(find os/test/resources -type l) lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 13 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-abs-symlink -> /doesnt/exist lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 6 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-symlink -> broken lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 11 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/file-symlink -> ../File.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 10 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/folder-symlink -> ../folder1 

As a side-effect, when I did git diff from cygwin, some file permissions had been changed from 644 to 744.

To restore file permissions:

git restore . 

Finally:

$ git status On branch main Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'. nothing to commit, working tree clean 

If you have WSL2 installed (if not, see @Peeter Joot's answer) , you can easily clone a project with symlinks into a Windows directory.

To be explicit, the following project has 4 symlinks below the os/test/resources directory, 2 of which are broken by design: com-lihaoyi/os-lib.

To clone it into my HOME directory workspaces folder, I did the following from a WSL2 Ubuntu bash session:

cd /mnt/c/Users/username/workspace/ git clone https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib.git cd os-lib 

From a cygwin or msys2 session, you can verify that the symlinks are as expected:

# verify symlinks: ls -ltrad $(find os/test/resources -type l) lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 13 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-abs-symlink -> /doesnt/exist lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 6 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-symlink -> broken lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 11 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/file-symlink -> ../File.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 10 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/folder-symlink -> ../folder1 

As a side-effect, when I did git diff from cygwin, some file permissions had been changed from 644 to 744.

To undo modified file permissions:

git config --unset --local core.fileMode 

Finally:

$ git status On branch main Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'. nothing to commit, working tree clean 

If you have WSL2 installed (if not, see @Peeter Joot's answer) , you can easily clone a project with symlinks into a Windows directory.

To be explicit, the following project has 4 symlinks below the os/test/resources directory, 2 of which are broken by design: com-lihaoyi/os-lib, so it's not possible to clone using the cygwin or msys2 version of git.

From a WSL2 Ubuntu bash session, I was able to clone it into my C:\Users\username\workspaces folder.

cd /mnt/c/Users/username/workspace/   git clone https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib.git   cd os-lib/ 

From a cygwin or msys2 session, you can verify that the symlinks are as expected:

# verify symlinks: ls -ltrad $(find os/test/resources -type l) lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 13 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-abs-symlink -> /doesnt/exist lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 6 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-symlink -> broken lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 11 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/file-symlink -> ../File.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 10 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/folder-symlink -> ../folder1 

As a side-effect, when I did git diff from cygwin, some file permissions had been changed from 644 to 744.

To restore file permissions:

git config --unset --local core.fileMode 

Finally:

$ git status On branch main Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'. nothing to commit, working tree clean 

If you have WSL2 installed (if not, see @Peeter Joot's answer) , you can PAINLESSLY clone a project with symlinks into a Windows directory.

To be explicit, the following project has 4 symlinks below the os/test/resources directory, 2 of which are broken by design: com-lihaoyi/os-lib.

To clone it into my HOME directory workspaces folder, I did the following from a WSL2 Ubuntu bash session:

cd /mnt/c/Users/username/workspace/ git clone https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib.git cd os-lib 

From a cygwin or msys2 session:

# verify symlinks: ls -ltrad $(find os/test/resources -type l) lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 13 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-abs-symlink -> /doesnt/exist lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 6 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-symlink -> broken lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 11 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/file-symlink -> ../File.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 10 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/folder-symlink -> ../folder1 

If you have WSL2 installed (if not, see @Peeter Joot's answer) , you can easily clone a project with symlinks into a Windows directory.

To be explicit, the following project has 4 symlinks below the os/test/resources directory, 2 of which are broken by design: com-lihaoyi/os-lib.

To clone it into my HOME directory workspaces folder, I did the following from a WSL2 Ubuntu bash session:

cd /mnt/c/Users/username/workspace/ git clone https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib.git cd os-lib 

From a cygwin or msys2 session, you can verify that the symlinks are as expected:

# verify symlinks: ls -ltrad $(find os/test/resources -type l) lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 13 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-abs-symlink -> /doesnt/exist lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 6 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/broken-symlink -> broken lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 11 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/file-symlink -> ../File.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 username None 10 Jun 10 10:55 os/test/resources/test/misc/folder-symlink -> ../folder1 

As a side-effect, when I did git diff from cygwin, some file permissions had been changed from 644 to 744.

To undo modified file permissions:

git config --unset --local core.fileMode 

Finally:

$ git status On branch main Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'. nothing to commit, working tree clean