NVM asking for elevation for switching between node versions

[priyansh-p4]

Hi, I want to know that is there any way to overcome with this? As in corporate elevated privelege is somethinf which cannot be provided to anyone. So any way to switch node versions without elevation?

[coreybutler]

NVM for Windows v1 uses symlinks to switch versions. Windows requires a special privilege for this. You can achieve this by enabling Developer Mode, by granting users the specific privilege through a group policy (I'd have to look up the specific name), or by having elevated privileges. This is how NVM for Windows v1 works, and those are the restrictions of the operating system.

I am limited in what I can say right now, but this problem is about to go away. I'll be making an announcement very soon. If you are working in a corporate environment and have authority to speak on behalf of your company about deploying NVM for Windows in your organization, you can reach me at support@author.io for more details.

[coreybutler]

UPDATE v2 no longer requires this, with one caveat.

v2 introduced "shim" mode. This does not require special permissions. There is also a "link" mode that operates like v1, but without requiring elevated privileges. It uses NTFS junctions to create links. The caveat is NTFS junctions don't work with UNC paths (remote/mapped directories). Only symlinks support that. Version 2 attempts a junction first, falling back to symlinks on UNC paths. But I recommend using shim mode to avoid this entirely.