[BUG] Can't run Salt as a standard (non-admin) user on Windows

[twangboy]

Description
Can't run Salt as a standard (non-admin) user on Windows. It tries to read a registry key from HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Salt Project\Salt. Is there a valid reason to lock down this registry key?

Setup
Install Salt using standard installer
Create a config file for the user: C:\Users\<username>\Salt\conf\minion

Please be as specific as possible and give set-up details.

• on-prem machine
• VM (Virtualbox, KVM, etc. please specify)
• VM running on a cloud service, please be explicit and add details
• container (Kubernetes, Docker, containerd, etc. please specify)
• or a combination, please be explicit
• jails if it is FreeBSD

Steps to Reproduce the behavior
Run salt-call: salt-call --local -c "C:\Users\<username>\Salt\conf" test.ping
StackTrace:

C:\Windows\system32>salt-call --local -c "C:\Users\standard.user\Salt\conf" test.ping
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\Scripts\salt-call", line 4, in <module>
    __import__('pkg_resources').run_script('salt==3004', 'salt-call')
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\pkg_resources\__init__.py", line 656, in run_script
    self.require(requires)[0].run_script(script_name, ns)
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\pkg_resources\__init__.py", line 1453, in run_script
    exec(code, namespace, namespace)
  File "c:\program files\salt project\salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\EGG-INFO\scripts\salt-call", line 10, in <module>
    salt_call()
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\scripts.py", line 426, in salt_call
    import salt.cli.call
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\cli\call.py", line 3, in <module>
    import salt.cli.caller
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\cli\caller.py", line 14, in <module>
    import salt.loader
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\loader\__init__.py", line 14, in <module>
    import salt.config
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\config\__init__.py", line 17, in <module>
    import salt.syspaths
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\syspaths.py", line 128, in <module>
    ROOT_DIR = _get_windows_root_dir()
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\syspaths.py", line 99, in _get_windows_root_dir
    root_dir = salt.utils.win_reg.read_value(
  File "C:\Program Files\Salt Project\Salt\bin\lib\site-packages\salt-3004-py3.8.egg\salt\utils\win_reg.py", line 537, in read_value
    handle = win32api.RegOpenKeyEx(hkey, local_key, 0, access_mask)
pywintypes.error: (5, 'RegOpenKeyEx', 'Access is denied.')

Expected behavior
Should be able to run salt as a standard (non-admin) user

Versions Report

salt --versions-report

(Provided by running salt --versions-report. Please also mention any differences in master/minion versions.)

Salt Version:
          Salt: 3004

Dependency Versions:
          cffi: 1.14.6
      cherrypy: 18.6.1
      dateutil: 2.8.1
     docker-py: Not Installed
         gitdb: 4.0.7
     gitpython: 3.1.18
        Jinja2: 2.10.1
       libgit2: Not Installed
      M2Crypto: Not Installed
          Mako: 1.1.4
       msgpack: 0.6.2
  msgpack-pure: Not Installed
  mysql-python: Not Installed
     pycparser: 2.20
      pycrypto: Not Installed
  pycryptodome: 3.10.1
        pygit2: Not Installed
        Python: 3.8.8 (tags/v3.8.8:024d805, Feb 19 2021, 13:18:16) [MSC v.1928 64 bit (AMD64)]
  python-gnupg: 0.4.7
        PyYAML: 5.4.1
         PyZMQ: 19.0.0
         smmap: 4.0.0
       timelib: 0.2.4
       Tornado: 4.5.3
           ZMQ: 4.3.2

System Versions:
          dist:
        locale: cp1252
       machine: AMD64
       release: 2016Server
        system: Windows
       version: 2016Server 10.0.14393 SP0 Multiprocessor Free

[twangboy]

Need to test if we can give the Non-Admin user permissions to the registry key and have Salt run properly.

[nschoonm]

+1