Running remote GUI app in Powershell

Using standard PowerShell methods (WinRM, WMI) you can't launch applications with GUI. The only solution I know about is to use PsExec from SysInternals (or similar tools). It can launch applications which present GUI to the user. Your command line will look like this:

& ".\psexec" -accepteula -i "\\computername" -u "domain\username" -p "password" "command line"

• -accepteula — silently accept EULA.
• -i — allow GUI.

Other solutions are more hacky, including remote adding of tasks to the scheduler.

Since I came across this recently, here is my solution using Discord's suggestion of adding a remote task. I preferred the "hack" over having to setup a separate tool.

function Start-Process-Active{    param    (        [System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.PSSession]$Session,        [string]$Executable,        [string]$Argument,        [string]$WorkingDirectory,        [string]$UserID,        [switch]$Verbose = $false    )    if (($Session -eq $null) -or ($Session.Availability -ne [System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.RunspaceAvailability]::Available))    {        $Session.Availability        throw [System.Exception] "Session is not availabile"    }    Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ArgumentList $Executable,$Argument,$WorkingDirectory,$UserID -ScriptBlock {        param($Executable, $Argument, $WorkingDirectory, $UserID)        $action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute $Executable -Argument $Argument -WorkingDirectory $WorkingDirectory        $principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal -userid $UserID        $task = New-ScheduledTask -Action $action -Principal $principal        $taskname = "_StartProcessActiveTask"        try         {            $registeredTask = Get-ScheduledTask $taskname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue        }         catch         {            $registeredTask = $null        }        if ($registeredTask)        {            Unregister-ScheduledTask -InputObject $registeredTask -Confirm:$false        }        $registeredTask = Register-ScheduledTask $taskname -InputObject $task        Start-ScheduledTask -InputObject $registeredTask        Unregister-ScheduledTask -InputObject $registeredTask -Confirm:$false    }}