How can I read a zip file into bytes?

Here is a similar topic, but the outcome of the examples in this topic seems incorrect compared to the outcome of my Python script (see below), which seems correct.

I use this zip file as example: https://getsamplefiles.com/download/zip/sample-1.zip

C++ program:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <fstream>

using byte = unsigned char;

std::vector<char> static ReadFileBytes1(const std::string& fileName)
{
    std::ifstream ifs;
    ifs.exceptions(std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit);
    ifs.open(fileName.c_str(), std::ifstream::binary | std::ifstream::ate);

    std::ifstream::pos_type size = ifs.tellg();
    ifs.seekg(0, std::ios::beg);

    std::vector<char> buffer(size);
    ifs.read(buffer.data(), size);

    return buffer;
}

std::vector<byte> static ReadFileBytes2(const std::string& fileName)
{
    std::ifstream ifs;
    ifs.exceptions(std::ifstream::failbit | std::ifstream::badbit);
    ifs.open(fileName.c_str(), std::ifstream::binary | std::ifstream::ate);

    std::ifstream::pos_type size = ifs.tellg();
    ifs.seekg(0, std::ios::beg);

    std::vector<byte> buffer(size);
    ifs.read(buffer.data(), size); // This does not work. Argument of type byte * is incompatible with parameter of type char*

    return buffer;
}

int main()
{
    std::vector<char> zipFileInBytes1 = ReadFileBytes1("C:\Users\admin\Desktop\sample-1.zip");
    std::vector<byte> zipFileInBytes2 = ReadFileBytes2("C:\Users\admin\Desktop\sample-1.zip");

    system("pause");
}

Python script:

# Execute like this:
# "python configuration.py https://getsamplefiles.com/download/zip/sample-1.zip C:UsersadminDesktop"
import io, json, requests, sys, zipfile

def make_request(url, destination):
    try:
        response = requests.get(url)
        if response.ok == False or 'error' in response.text:
            return { "success": False, "message": response.text }

        print(response.content)
        
        zipStream = zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(response.content))
        zipStream.extractall(destination)
        return { "success": True, "message": f"Files fetched and successfully extracted to {destination}" }
    except requests.ConnectionError as e:
        return { "success": False, "message": f"Failed to connect to {url}" }
    except requests.Timeout as e:
        return { "success": False, "message": "Timeout error" }
    except requests.RequestException as e:
        return { "success": False, "message": str(e) }

# Command-line arguments
endpoint = sys.argv[1]
destination = sys.argv[2]

# Get zipfile and extract at destination path
getExtractZip = make_request(endpoint, destination)
if getExtractZip["success"] == False:
    sys.exit(f"Failed to get and extract zipped files. Message: {getExtractZip['message']}")

print("Successfully extracted zip file")

The print(response.content) output of my Python script seems to be a correct byte representation of the zip file. The variables in my C++ program seems to store a different result which seems incorrect. I would paste both results, but they are huge, so I think its better to run the C++ program and the Python script yourself to see the difference.

Sidenote: Eventually I would like to serve the zip file bytes (Content-Type: application/zip) to a client via an HTTP server, but that is out of scope for now.