Unable to Launch or Execute New Window or Applications on Remote System Using Windows PowerShell "Invoke-Command"

Question

In Windows Powershell (admin):

Connect to Remote Windows

$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName "xx.xx.xx.xx"

Attempting Remote Execution

Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {
            cd C:\Path
            ls
            Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Path\MyProgram.exe"
            start-Process cmd
        }

The cd and ls commands work as expected, but the Start-Process cmd and MyProgram.exe do not launch. No windows appear; it seems to be skipped.

I've also tried another approach:

PS C:\Jenkins> Enter-PSSession -Session $session
[xx.xx.xx.xx]: PS C:\Users\Administrator\Documents> Start-Process cmd
[xx.xx.xx.xx]: PS C:\Users\Administrator\Documents> (nothing happens)

Both way failed to launch or execute a new window or .exe file.

I tried to execute commands remotely and expected new windows or applications to be launched, but this did not happen.

Answer 1

• Fundamentally - whether remotely or not - there's rarely a good reason to use Start-Process to invoke external programs, especially if they're console applications.

  • To synchronously invoke the latter in the same window, with their standard streams connected to PowerShell's streams, invoke them directly (e.g. & "C:\Path\MyProgram.exe")

  • For guidance on when Start-Process is and isn't appropriate, see GitHub docs issue #6239

• In the context of PowerShell remoting, there are additional pitfalls:

  • Given that Start-Process creates a new window by default, that window won't be visible in a remoting session.

  • Additionally, execution is asynchronous by default (also in local calls).

  • While you could make the invocation synchronous with -Wait, an attempt to also run in the same window with -NoNewWindow does not work in remoting: you won't see any output (in local calls, you'll see the output, but you won't be able to capture it; that's why direct invocation is preferable).

• Finally, PowerShell's remoting does not support interactive console applications.

---

The upshot is:

• Assuming "C:\Path\MyProgram.exe" is a console application, use direct invocation in the remote session (&, the call operator, is needed for syntactic reasons, because your executable path is quoted):

  & "C:\Path\MyProgram.exe"
  

• However, your attempt to run cmd without /C and a specific command, i.e. your attempt to start an interactive session cannot work (the cmd.exe process starts up and quietly exits right away).

---

Options for running interactive console applications remotely:

• You can use Windows Remote Management via the built-in winrs.exe CLI, which supports interactive console applications. Windows Remote Management uses the same infrastructure (WSMan/WinRM) as PowerShell remoting, so chances are it will work for targeting computers where PowerShell remoting is enabled; see the docs for setup information.

  # Enter an interactive session on computer "yourcomputer"
  winrs -r:yourcomputer cmd
  

  • Note:
    • You could even start an interactive PowerShell session this way (winrs -r:yourcomputer cmd)
    • Whatever executable (plus arguments, if needed) you pass to winrs.exe is implicitly executed via (cmd /c).

• Alternatively, you can download and use psexec, which also supports interactive console applications, but uses a different remoting mechanism. It has many advanced features.