Symlinks were a thing in the NT days; you just had to use a downloadable tool from Microsoft. Googling doesn't seem to provide much information any longer, unfortunately.
I remember is was added, or at least announced, between late 1999 andr early 2001. Or maybe that was mounting a disk at a location instead of a letter. I just remember there was a fair amount of ridicule that it took so long for a simple feature that had existed for so long in Linux (and every UNIX) already, but both those fit the bill...