With kde3, when I double-clicked on a desktop symbolic-link to a text file, kwrite would launch with the name of the linked-to file in the title bar, and when the text was altered and saved, the backup file would be saved in the same directory as the linked-to file. That was fine.

With kde4.2, when I double-click on a desktop symbolic-link to a text file, kwrite launches with the name of the link itself in the title bar, and when the text is altered and saved, the backup file is placed on the desktop. I don't like this. Is it by design?

(I'm trying out kde4.2 as supplied by Mandriva 2009.1 RC1, which has the whole desktop set to folder-view mode.)

This is probably a behaviour change in Qt, rather than KDE. Either way, the backup should not be saved on the desktop, so please file a bug report for that. Not sure about the name appearence issue however, it could be considered a bug also, depending on your point of view. Please make sure to check for pre-existing bugs if you file any.