Given a symbolic link "symlink" whose target is a directory "dir" as with

C:\Users\bpb\dev\bugs\symlink -> C:\Users\bpb\dev\bugs\dir

and "subdir" is a sub-directory of "dir", then

jshell> new File("symlink").getCanonicalPath()
$2 ==> C:\\Users\\bpb\\dev\\bugs\\symlink

but

jshell> new File("symlink", "subdir").getCanonicalPath()
$3 ==> "C:\\Users\\bpb\\dev\\bugs\\dir\\subdir"