Why would a get-process -computername return a couldn't connect to remote machine error?

Question

I can execute the following command on a specific machine and it can return a list of processes on several target computers but returns a "Couldn't connect to remote machine" error on one machine.

get-process -ComputerName 192.168.1.101

• None of the target machines have powershell installed.
• The machine I am executing the powershell script on has 2.0 installed.
• I have admin privileges on all machines.
• The target machines that are able to return a list of processes remotely are server 2003 Standard Edition with SP 1.
• The target machine that does not return a list of processes remotely is server 2003 R2 Standard Edition SP2.

What would prevent me from getting a list of processes from a remote machine using powershell?

Solution

It turns out the machine that was returning the error did not have the Remote Registry service started. Once I started this service the "Couldn't connect to remote machine" error went away. This blog post helped me find the solution http://sebastienlachance.com/post/ProcessGetProcesses-common-errors.aspx

Comments

[user599084]

I was able to use Get-WMIObject win32_bios -computername targetIP without any error. The target machine does have the WMI service running.

[Jaykul]

That's very peculiar. I wonder why the RemoteRegistry service would have anything to do with it.