How can I get permission to create a symbolic link?

Question

I am trying to create a symbolic link from a program, but I keep getting:
A required privilege is not held by the client.
I am running the program from my account which is in the Administrators group, and otherwise has admin rights. However, if I login to the Administrator account the program runs fine, so I know the program code is correct.
I have checked the local security settings, and even added my account explicitly to the local security settings to create symbolic links, but that does not help. I have also turned of UAC, but that does not help.
What do I need to do on Windows 8.1 to be able to create a symbolic link from an account other than Administrator?
Cheers, Eric
Eric Kolotyluk - software developer, music DJ, swing dancer

Answer 1

Basically I have a Scala program that is doing:
  try {
    Files.createSymbolicLink(link21, folder1)
  catch {
    case fileSystemException: FileSystemException =>
      System.err.println("\n\t**** Error configuring test fixture ***\n\n")
      println(fileSystemException)
      if (fileSystemException.getMessage().contains("A required privilege is not held by the client"))
        println("You need to set permissions by...\n")
Where Files is the java.nio API. In fact it's a unit test fixture that tests to make sure my code handles symbolic links properly. The test fixture creates a temporary directory, for example
C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Local\Temp\testFolder-432432684744817467
and more files and folders below that. In one folder, it tries to make a symbolic link to another folder.
I tried what you said with Run As Administrator, in this case, I ran my Eclipse IDE as Administrator and the code works -- thanks for the tip :-)
However, in practice, I need this to work as part of automated unit test running as part of a Maven build, so is there some way to set things up that do not require "Run As Administrator"?
Now that I have one solution, I can probably figure out some hack, but I was hoping there would be some more simple straightforward way to do what I want.
Eric Kolotyluk - software developer, music DJ, swing dancer