Manage a Windows Machine using Windows Remote Management.

With Windows Remote Management (WinRM) you can remotely (duh! 🙂 ) manage hardware and software on your Windows machines. It’s installed by default on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. I mostly use it to start the command prompt on a remote system for which I use the WinRS.exe command. Before you can use WinRM, you have to configure it at the machine you want to remotely manage. Log in with an administrative account, start the command prompt and type the following:

C:>WinRM.exe quickconfig

This will set up remote access to your machine. It will create a HTTP listener that will accept request on any IP address and it will create and enable a Windows firewall exception for WinRM. You can view the listener configuration by typing the following:

C:>WinRM.exe enumerate winrm/config/listener 

Ok, now that the WinRM listener is created you can remotely connect to this machine. For example; if you remotely want to start the command prompt, type the following at another Windows machine:

C:>WinRS.exe –r:<machine name> CMD 

If successful, you will see command prompt starting and you’ll be redirected to the command prompt of the remote machine. You can verify that you are connected to a remote host by typing hostnameat the command prompt. It will return the name of the remote machine.

Tested on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.

Cheers!

– Marek.Z