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

[Jon Turney]

On 25/11/2025 04:04, C. Linus Hicks via Cygwin wrote:
> 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.
> Afterinstalling 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

This is an original ('sys') style Cygwin symlink: a plain file with 
contents like that, and with the system attribute set.

See https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#pathnames-symlinks

If this isn't functioning as a symlink for Cygwin (your report is 
unclear on the problem you are experiencing, other than noting a 
difference between these installations), then maybe something is 
interfering with the system attribute getting set?

> 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.

As of version 2.911 (December 2011), setup is more configurable and 
consistent about how it creates symlinks (to address other problems with 
them).

See https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin-announce/2021-December/010378.html

If you want your symlinks to be created as WSL reparse points, then run 
setup with --symlink-type=wsl.

(There's probably an argument to be made for that being the default on 
sufficiently recent Windows versions).