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Jimmy Collins
Asked: 2010-07-01 09:18:11 +0800 CST

Running psexec on a remote Windows 7 Enterprise workstation

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I can't seem to get psexec commands to work on a remote Windows 7 Enterprise workstation.

I'm trying to execute the following command:

psexec.exe \\172.16.165.157 -u jc -p testing123 -c -f -i cmd.exe

But I keep getting the error:

PsExec v1.94 - Execute processes remotely
Copyright (C) 2001-2008 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Error copying C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe to remote system:
Access is denied.

I'm trying to execute the command from a machine running Windows XP Professional.

pstools

5 Answers

  1. If you are trying to do something that could generate a UAC prompt on the remote system, you need to use this:

         -h         If the target system is Vista or higher, has the process
                run with the account's elevated token, if available.

    Copying cmd.exe from the system32 directory of a WinXP machine to the system32 directory of a Win7 machine is a very poorly conceived example. Please be careful. It is unwise to treat system files with such disrespect, especially across OS versions or architectures.

    When you are using psexec, please specify a full path that is not within the c:\windows\ hierarchy on the remote system.

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  2. Presumably, there is a user account "jc" on the machine "172.16.165.157", with the password "testing123", and that account has "Administrator" rights there?

    If the answer is "no" then this is your problem.

    You don't want to copy "CMD.EXE" to the remote machine, either. It's already there. You don't need the "-c" flag on your PSEXEC command-line.

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  3. Try -u computername\jc

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  4. Best Answer

    I used the -d argument as a workaround. But that means I don’t get back the return code from the process I started remotely.

    This is a workaround, but it is not ideal.

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  5. Three things comes to my mind...

    1. Make sure to activate admin$ share on the target
    2. Even if you pass an admin user in the arguments with psexec you still need to run the psexec-command itself on the source as a administrator too.
    3. On the resent psexec there is a -h switch to overcome issues reaching Vista and above machines, although I haven't tested it.
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