As explained in this Microsoft blogpost (https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/), it is possible on newer versions of Windows 10 for non-privileged users to create symlinks when the machine is in developer mode. However, to ensure backwards compatibility, this behavior requires a flag to be passed to the CreateSymbolicLink function.

I think this is something that Python can benefit from having. It would go from "symlinks on Windows rarely work" to "symlinks on Windows work in developer mode (and rarely otherwise)".

I've attached a proof of concept patch to enable this behavior (a Windows 10 machine with the 'Creators Update' is required to test it). In summary, it enables the flag by default, and updates enable_symlink to prevent lacking privilege from disabling symlinks on machines in developer mode.