Symlink creation on Windows should work without privilege escalation

[jaraco]

BPO	37453
Nosy	@jaraco, @eryksun, @zooba

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2019-06-30.19:59:41.497>
created_at = <Date 2019-06-30.19:52:50.795>
labels = ['3.9']
title = 'Symlink creation on Windows should work without privilege escalation'
updated_at = <Date 2019-06-30.20:22:54.235>
user = 'https://github.com/jaraco'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-06-30.20:22:54.235>
actor = 'eryksun'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2019-06-30.19:59:41.497>
closer = 'jaraco'
components = []
creation = <Date 2019-06-30.19:52:50.795>
creator = 'jaraco'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 37453
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['346935', '346936', '346938', '346940']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['jaraco', 'eryksun', 'steve.dower']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'works for me'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue37453'
versions = ['Python 3.9']

[jaraco]

A few years ago, Windows announced more lenient support for creating symbolic links. This more lenient support requires the caller to pass a flag in the API. Neither the blog post nor the API docs give any indication of why one would not ever pass that flag, and passing it will enable symlink to work in more cases that work in Unix, so I believe Python should set the SYMBOLIC_LINK_FLAG_ALLOW_UNPRIVILEGED_CREATE flag.

[jaraco]

The missing reference above should be https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/#iqm9GJhlyWhcM78e.97

[jaraco]

I see looking at the code and docs now that this work was done for Python 3.8.

[eryksun]

FYI, this only works when the system is in developer mode. If you want authenticated users and non-elevated administrators to have symlink rights in applications that haven't been updated to use this flag, or without enabling developer mode, grant the right to create symbolic links to the "Authenticated Users" (S-1-5-11) well-known group.