Using systeminfo command on network computer

Question

I am having poor luck running systeminfo against network computers. Half the time this command works:

systeminfo /s computer_name

And half the time I get a password request. I am doing this command at different sites implementing the same Windows based appliances.

I know the username and password for the Windows appliances but I can't get the syntax right. I've tried

systeminfo /s computer_name /u username /p passwords

That didn't work. I am not entirely sure if the computers are on a domain or not, but I tried the command with what the domain would be

systeminfo /s computer_name /u domain\username /p passwords

That didn't work.

The thing that is especially hard for me to wrap my head around is that the username and passwords on the PC and the appliances are all the same.

So I have three questions:

1. Am I missing some syntax step?
2. How do you handle the domain/username parameter for /u if there isn't a domain?
3. Is there a way to definitively tell what the login domain should be? (before being able to log into the appliance)

Solution

If systeminfo /s localhost works for localhost but not for computer_name you might not have enough privileges for running such request on the remote computer.

PowerShell can prompt you the credential Window if you want to:

Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName computer_name -Credential domain\user

Comments

[Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style]

1. Technet shows and example here in the same format so I'm not sure why it wouldn't work that way with domain\username. You could try the username@domain format to see if that makes a difference. 2. if there isn't a domain, then you need to use a local username and password of that machine and sometimes you have to use format IPAddress\username or maybe just username with no domain. The account probably needs to be at least a local administrator though if not the local administrator itself. Those are my quick thoughts.

[Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style]

Formats: MachineIPAddress\LocalUsername, LocalUsername (with NO DOMAIN specified), or maybe LocalMachineName\LocalUsername. The syntax looks fine as-is above so it's likely just an authentication issue. Confirm that you can access the remote non-domain joined machines other ways such as RDP, local login is applicable, check its Event Viewer logs including security logs, etc.