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Can't send PsExec command to a remote computer in my LAN

Rafael Silva 0 Reputation points
2025-06-26T23:16:20.81+00:00

I'm running v. 17.06 of Process Explorer and PsExec v. 2.43. I was following a YouTube video by Aaron Margolis on using PsTools, specifically I was focusing on psexec. First off, I ran into not being able to run any of the commands from pwsh without preceding them with ".".

OK, so getting past that, when I tried to run a command as simple as psexec cmd and direct it at another computer on my LAN to which I have access and Administrator permissions, I got "connecting to remote computer" and then "access denied" without any dialog or login opportunity.

Troubleshooting, I know I can access folders and files on that computer directly from my File Explorer without any "you don't have permission" or "access denied" alerts. What do I have to do to make this work? My main computer has Windows 11 Pro up to date on it and my old remote on the LAN is still running Windows 10 Pro because it doesn't meet the TPM requirement.

By the way, none of what Margolis showed on his running of System Internals' Process Explorer duplicated on mine. I don't know what version he was running but I never got anything showing up in the PsExec "tree", even when I ran it locally. It just opened a blank copy of the cmd window, and as I mentioned above, trying to run it on a the remote pc on my LAN didn't work at all.

I did a little more research while troubleshooting and read similar questions. I tried to figure out what Security Policy Settings I may have to enable from the remote client pc to permit me as an Administrator on my host Win 11 PC to be able to execute PsTools commands remotely on my LAN's Win 10 PC.

Many years ago (before Win 11 I think) I do remember being asked for login credentials when trying to access files and folders remotely. That was when I had both Macs and Linux pcs on my LAN, but I haven't had to do that in years. I've mapped folders that I access regularly from the remote W10 pc and can access them from my W11 pc in a heartbeat.

I tried to figure out what policy or policies I might have to configure but the Security Policy Editor is different in W11 than in W10 and I'm not at all sure what I would need to do to give myself access so I can for example run PsExec remotely. I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions or direction. Thanks.

Sysinternals
Sysinternals
Advanced system utilities to manage, troubleshoot, and diagnose Windows and Linux systems and applications.
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  1. MotoX80 36,536 Reputation points
    2025-06-27T21:45:51.2666667+00:00

    Let's start with psexec. It requires access to the admin$ share on the target pc in order to function. Verify access. Replace "test10" with the name of your target pc. 

    net view \\test10 /all
dir \\test10\admin$

    If you get "access denied", on the "net view", that says that the account that you logged on your pc with cannot authenticate to the target pc. You will need to provide credentials.

    net use \\test10\ipc$ /user:YourTest10AdminName 
net view \\test10 /all
dir \\test10\admin$
net use \\test10\ipc$ /del

    If "net view" works but the dir command still gets access denied, then check this registry value on the target pc.

    REG query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\system /v LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy

    If it does not exist, or is set to 0, then enable it with this command. 

    REG ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\system /v LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

    Then try again.

    Once you can access the admin$ share, then try psexec. Either with or without credentials. 

    psexec \\test10 cmd.exe 
psexec \\test10 -u YourTest10AdminName -p YourTest10AdminPassword cmd.exe
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