Microsoft® Windows® NT 5.0 provides a link tracking service enabling client applications to track link sources that have been moved. As a result, clients that subscribe to the link tracking service can maintain the integrity of their references, and the objects referenced can be moved transparently.
A link source is an object referenced by a link client. For example, in a Microsoft® Word document that contains an OLE link to a Microsoft® Excel worksheet, the Word document is the link client and the Excel worksheet is the link source.
The link-tracking service in Windows NT 5.0 tracks link sources for shell shortcuts and OLE links within Windows NT File System (NTFS, version 5.0) volumes. The link client can mend the broken link with updated information on the new location of the link source.