Trying to start an exe or bat file on a remote machine, via a cmd shell

Running the following from a command line to launch a process on remote computer

 wmic /node:remotemachine /user:localadmin process call create "cmd.exe /c C:\temp\myfolder\test.bat"

basically it's just

 echo Some Text > output.txt

I tested by double clicking the batch file and it creates the output.txt file.

the batch file just echoes to a file. I did this to see if it actually runs.

The cmd process starts. I can see it in the processes, but the batch file never creates the text file.

I started off trying to run an EXE from my C# application, but it will create the process for the executable, but the actions the executable takes, never occurs.

So I started testing other ways to do the same thing, and I am encountering the same issue. it creates the process, but doesn't actually run the bat or exe.

Any help would be appreciated.

I need to be more specific

I'm using the following code within my C# application:

public static void ConnectToRemoteClient(string client_machine, string target_exe )
{
    var connection = new ConnectionOptions();
    object[] theProcessToRun = { target_exe };

    var wmiScope = new ManagementScope($@"\\{client_machine}\root\cimv2", connection);

    wmiScope.Connect();

    using (var managementClass = new ManagementClass(wmiScope, new ManagementPath("Win32_Process"), new ObjectGetOptions()))
    {
        managementClass.InvokeMethod("Create", theProcessToRun );
    }   
}

It's called as follows:

It is called using the following syntax:

string exe = string.Format(@"cmd.exe /c C:\temp\Myfolder\test.bat");
ConnectToRemoteClient("ClientMachine", exe);

It will launch the process and I see the cmd.exe running, but the test.bat actions never occur.

Solution

Telling WMIC to run a single command is pretty straight forward. Trouble shows up once we try to nest one command inside another. :-)

Since this case has an outer command (cmd.exe) and an inner command (C:\temp\Myfolder\test.bat), the trick is separating them in a way that WMIC can use. There are 3 techniques that'll work, but the one which has the fewest issues with special characters is the single-to-double-wrap method. Effectively you use single quotes around the outer command, and double quotes around the inner command. For example:

wmic /node:NameOfRemoteSystem process call create 'cmd.exe /c "whoami /all >c:\temp\z.txt"'

Wrapping in this way will preserve the redirector (>) and it also doesn't require you to double your backslashes on the inner command.

Output From Example:

dir \\NameOfRemoteSystem\c$\temp\z.txt
File Not Found

wmic /node:NameOfRemoteSystem process call create 'cmd.exe /c "whoami /all >c:\temp\z.txt"'
Executing (Win32_Process)->Create()
Method execution successful.
Out Parameters:
instance of __PARAMETERS
{
        ProcessId = 20460;
        ReturnValue = 0;
};

dir \\NameOfRemoteSystem\c$\temp\z.txt
03/27/2019  04:40 PM            17,977 z.txt