# Hugging Face downloads require Developer Mode on Windows
## What's going on
On Windows, snapshot_download and hf_hub_download fail unless I enable Developer Mode or run as admin, because they use symlinks. Regular users will not enable developer mode just to download a model. Is there a workaround?
## The verified fix
You are right, requiring developer mode was a bad experience. This was fixed in huggingface_hub v0.10: the download code now checks whether symlinks are supported, and when they are not, like on Windows without developer mode or admin rights, it falls back to copying the files instead of failing. So just upgrade huggingface_hub and the downloads will work for regular users with no special settings. Source: https://github.com/huggingface/huggingface_hub/issues/1062
## How to use this
Take the question above and check if it matches what you're seeing. If it does, work through the verified fix step by step. Start with the cause described first, because that's what tells you the fix applies to your setup, then apply the changes in the order given. Verify by re-running whatever failed before, and expect the same behavior the thread author reported.