I’m with you there… if it needs changing when pushing the release version… it’s likely to get missed… (yes, I’m looking at you library manifest files! 
).
If you want to find out how to do file system links on Windoze, this is a good guide on the native support via the command line:
And for a useful helper shell extension (which looks to be maintined, so should still work nicely):
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html