Cygwin install on Windows 11 problem with symlinks in /etc/fonts/conf.d from libfontconfig-common package

[C. Linus Hicks]

The company gave us a new VDI with Windows 11 installed to replace the old VDI where Cygwin 64 had been installed on Windows 10. After installing Cygwin on the new machine, I noticed a strange problem with it that I was just now able to track down.

The files created in /etc/fonts/conf.d by the libfontconfig-common package were not created as symlinks but rather as flat files having contents like so:

!<symlink>../../../usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-hinting-slight.conf

There are symlinks scattered around /usr/share in various directories that were created correctly, and if I execute ln -s in the /etc/fonts/conf.d directory, it will create an entry that acts like a symlink.

I tried reinstalling the libfontconfig-common package using the Cygwin installer, but it didn't help. I also tried downgrading to a different version, still no help.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding which package install should be creating these symlinks, but looking for help here, and not understanding why they were created incorrectly on the initial install.

Linus