By Ellie / Last Updated November 24, 2022

How to remotely run programs on another computer?

“Sometimes, I need to work remotely to deal with some urgent tasks. Some of these tasks require me to open specific files or run programs on my office computer from home. So can anyone tell me how to remotely run programs on another computer?”

Three ways to remotely run programs on another computer

Here we listed three ways to remotely run programs on another computer. You can do remote computer management on Windows 10, 11 via free remote desktop software, PsExec, and PowerShell remoting respectively.

Method 1. Free remote desktop software

Remote desktop software enables you to control and access other machines from any location. You can choose free and easy-to-use remote desktop software, for example, AnyViewer, to remotely run programs on another computer. Next, let’s see how this works.

Download Freeware Win 11/10/8.1/8/7
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Step 1. Download, install and launch AnyViewer on both computers.

Connect

Step 2. Go to Log in, and then click Sign up. (If you already have signed up on its official website, you can log in directly.)

Log in AnyViewer

Step 3. Fill in the signup information.

Sign Up for AnyViewer

Step 4. Then you can see you successfully logged in to AnyViewer. Your device will automatically be assigned to the account you've logged in to.

Free Editions

Step 5. Log in to the same AnyViewer account on the two devices, then you can achieve a direct connection by clicking One-click control.

Connect to My Devices

Step 6. Then you can run any program on the host computer as if you’re sitting in front of it.

Notes:✎...
You can upgrade your account to a Professional or Enterprise plan. Then you'll have the following rights:
Assign more devices to achieve unattended remote access to more devices.
Connect to another computer in privacy mode, which means you can black the screen and block the mouse and keyboard of the remote computer.
Transfer files at a faster speed. Transfer speed for a free account is 500 KB/s, and for a paid account is up to 10 MB/s.

Method 2. PsExec

Another way is to run programs on a remote computer via PsExec, which is a tool that lets users execute processes on remote systems with commands sent via Command Prompt. PsExec can be used to not only manage processes on the remote computer but also to redirect a program’s console output to the local computer, making the process appear to be operating locally. The way how to use PsExec can be divided into four parts:

  • Turn on file and printer sharing
  • Enable administrative share ($admin) on the remote host
  • Get the details of the remote host
  • Use PsExec with CMD to take control of another computer

Of which the first three parts are set up process, once finished, you can use PsExec to take control of another computer and use the syntax of PsExec to type effective commands to run specific programs.

For example, “-i” is a PsExec switch that allows you to bring up programs for the remote computer. If you want to bring up a notepad window on a remote computer, you can run the following command:

> psexec -i \\REMOTECOMPUTER notepad

The “REMOTECOMPUTER” here refers to the name of the remote computer. For example, if the remote computer is contosodc1, then you need to enter the following command to open Notepad on the remote computer:

Open Notepad on PsExec

Method 3. PowerShell remoting

The last way is to run programs on a remote computer via PowerShell remoting. PowerShell remoting allows you to access entire PowerShell sessions on remote Windows systems and conduct PowerShell commands. Before using it, you also need a few setup steps on the remote computer.

Step 1. Right-click Start, then choose Windows PowerShell (Admin).

Windows PowerShell Admin

Step 2. In the PowerShell window, type the following cmdlet, and then hit Enter:

Enable-PSRemoting -Force

PowerShell Enable PSRemoting

✍Note: If your PCs are part of a domain, you can skip to Step 4. If your computers aren’t on a domain, you need one more step to go. And please remember, you need to conduct Step 3 on both the PC to which you want to connect to and the PC you want to connect from.

Step 3. Type in the following cmdlets in PowerShell respectively:

Set-Item wsman:\localhost\client\trustedhosts *

Restart-Service WinRM

Two Cmdlet

Step 4. Then you can start a remote session by entering the following cmdlet:

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName COMPUTER -Credential USER

Remember to replace “COMPUTER” with the name or IP address of the remote computer and “USERNAME” with the username you want to run the command as on the remote computer.

For example, both the “COMPUTER” and “USERNAME” of the remote computer are 10.0.0.22, and you want to view the contents of the C:\ directory on it.

Open File on Remote Computer

Conclusion

How to remotely run programs on another computer to do remote computer management on Windows 10? Here we introduced three ways. It can be found by comparing the three that AnyViewer provides you with the easiest and the most intuitive way to remotely run programs on a remote computer. You can see the screen of the remote computer fully while leaving out the complicated setup work.