Summary

Running uv add jupyterlab-widgets==3.0.16 --link-mode=symlink fails on a fresh project on Windows when running without admin permissions.

Reproduction

> uv init
> uv add jupyterlab-widgets==3.0.16 --link-mode=symlink
Resolved 2 packages in 32ms
error: Failed to install: jupyterlab_widgets-3.0.16-py3-none-any.whl (jupyterlab-widgets==3.0.16)
  Caused by: failed to symlink file from C:\Users\namc\AppData\Local\uv\cache\archive-v0\EswKn5fxGWjZvCVIQHCBP\jupyterlab_widgets-3.0.16.data\data\share\jupyter\labextensions\@jupyter-widgets\jupyterlab-manager\static\packages_base_lib_index_js-webpack_sharing_consume_default_jquery_jquery.5dd13f8e980fa3c50bfe.js to C:\Users\namc\Temp\pl\.venv\Lib\site-packages\jupyterlab_widgets-3.0.16.data\data\share\jupyter\labextensions\@jupyter-widgets\jupyterlab-manager\static\packages_base_lib_index_js-webpack_sharing_consume_default_jquery_jquery.5dd13f8e980fa3c50bfe.js: A required privilege is not held by the client. (os error 1314)

• I have Windows developer mode enabled to enable symlinks.
• I've tried uv cache clean jupyterlab-widgets.
• I've tried setting a different to the cache directory via uv add jupyterlab-widgets==3.0.16 --link-mode=symlink --cache-dir="C:/uc", with the same issue.

Other things that do work

• Running with admin permissions is successful.
• Installing the previous version of jupyterlab-widgets==3.0.15 works fine.
• Using --no-cache, --link-mode=copy and --link-mode=hardlink are all successful.

Considerations

The long relative path in the package jupyter\labextensions\@jupyter-widgets\jupyterlab-manager\static\packages_base_lib_index_js-webpack_sharing_consume_default_jquery_jquery.5dd13f8e980fa3c50bfe.js is a bit suspicious. Actually, there's an even longer one: jupyter\labextensions\@jupyter-widgets\jupyterlab-manager\static\vendors-node_modules_d3-color_src_color_js-node_modules_d3-format_src_defaultLocale_js-node_m-09b215.2643c43f22ad111f4f82.js.map.

jupyterlab-widgets is a required dependency of ipywidgets, and shares the same git repo.

I am using symlinks as a workaround to #11134.

Platform

Windows 11 Enterprise 24H2

Version

uv 0.9.13 (7ca92dc 2025-11-26)

Python version

Python 3.13.2