New submission from DataGhost <site.pythonb...@dataghost.com>:

I just installed the Windows Store version of Python (v3.8.3:6f8c832) on 
Windows 10.0.18362.900 (1903, old VM) and quickly ran into the issue that 
registry writes aren't visible system-wide. I later found a remark about this 
in the Known Issues section of the Using Python on Windows page. Real-world 
scenario: running "python -m pip install --user pipx" and subsequently "python 
-m pipx ensurepath" says it changed the PATH variable, but it does not take 
effect even after a reboot. I'd say this is one of the cases where a user might 
not know about what's going on and why it fails, even after reading the known 
issues, and the developer might not have thought of the existence or 
incompatibility of the Windows Store version of Python at all.

I have found a workaround to do this, though, and I figured the best place to 
do that is in the actual winreg module so that users and developers don't need 
to worry about this. Calling reg.exe allows registry variables to be written in 
the "normal" registry, and these changes are system-wide rather than in the 
private copy Store apps use. Some functions could be changed to use the reg.exe 
binary instead of the system calls on Windows Store builds. Other functions, 
such as for querying, don't need any changes.

I realise this is an ugly workaround so I'm just suggesting it in hopes of 
improving compatibility, so that users and developers don't need to worry about 
these issues anymore. I did some basic tests on this, by executing reg.exe 
through the subprocess module, and testing for a Windows Store instance by 
checking sys.base_exec_prefix. There are probably better ways but at least this 
shows that it should be possible in just Python.

----------
components: Windows
messages: 372726
nosy: DataGhost, paul.moore, steve.dower, tim.golden, zach.ware
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Registry writes on Windows Store - workaround
type: enhancement
versions: Python 3.8

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Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue41178>
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