Bdtyktl

PsExec behaves very strangely when run on a specific server

When I use PsExec to run a program on multiple remote machines in most cases, it works perfectly fine. When I run the same command on one specific machine, it treats the second server provided in the comma-separated list like it's a program name.

Here's my call to the remote servers:

psexec \server11111,server11112 /accepteula -u "DomainUser" -p "password" -i 2 -d cmd.exe /c "wmic bios getsmbiosbiosversion"

And here's the output:

PsExec v2.11 - Execute processes remotely

Copyright (C) 2001-2014 Mark Russinovich

Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com



PsExec could not start server11112 on server11111:

The system cannot find the file specified

This command works fine when I run it on my dev machine. However, when I run the same command from a server running Windows 2012, it fails and I get the output above.

To expand on Patrick's answer, instead of listing servers with the \computer[,computer2[,...] format, you can use a list of computers from a text file.

From the psexec documentation (through psexec /?):

Usage: psexec [\computer[,computer2[,...] | @file]][-u user [-p psswd][-n s][-r servicename][-h][-l][-s|-e][-x][-i [session]][-c [-f|-v]][-w directory][-d][-<priority>][-a n,n,...] cmd [arguments]



     @file      PsExec will execute the command on each of the computers listed

                in the file.

That is, you can create a text file (for example computers.txt) in the directory you're working from filled with computer names:

computer

computer2

computer3

Then you can use the command:

psexec @computers.txt /accepteula -u "DomainUser" -p "password" -i 2 -d cmd.exe /c "wmic bios getsmbiosbiosversion"

psexec will then run the command on each computer in order as specificed in computers.txt.

Maybe you have a non-displaying character after the comma. I get the exact same

PsExec could not start <server2> on <server1>:

error if I have a space after the comma.

Call a list not from the commandline:

psexec @ListOfServers /accepteula -u "DomainUser" -p "password" -i 2 -d cmd.exe /c "wmic bios getsmbiosbiosversion"