_winreg.SaveKey Error - A required privilege is not held by the client

Question

I want to save the registry key "Run" using _winreg in Python. This is my code:

import _winreg
key = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, r'Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run')
_winreg.SaveKey(key, "C:\key.reg")

When executing, I get a Windows error message: "A required privilege is not held by the client"

Can anyone see what is wrong?

Answer 1

Modify your code as below. It works fine if it is Run as Administrator. I have tested it on Win7 64 bit

import os, sys
import _winreg
import win32api
import win32security

#
# You need to have SeBackupPrivilege enabled for this to work
#

priv_flags = win32security.TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES | win32security.TOKEN_QUERY
hToken = win32security.OpenProcessToken (win32api.GetCurrentProcess (), priv_flags)
privilege_id = win32security.LookupPrivilegeValue (None, "SeBackupPrivilege")
win32security.AdjustTokenPrivileges (hToken, 0, [(privilege_id, win32security.SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED)])

key = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, r'Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run')

filepath = r'C:\key.reg'

if os.path.exists (filepath):
  os.unlink (filepath)

_winreg.SaveKey (key, filepath)

Note: if win32api & win32security are missing, install them from here

Reference: Here