tchester said :
(2) Create a login for the non-sysadmin user that has public access to the master database
I went to my user's database list (server/security/connections/my user name/properties/user mapping, and wanted to check the box for master database. I got an error message telling that the user already exists in the master database. Went to master database, dropped the user, went back to "user mapping" and checked the box for master. Check the "public" box below.
After that, you need to re-issue the grant execute on xp_cmdshell to "my user name"
Yves