PsTools : PSExec from 2008R2, access is denied.

Author: jhuegen
Subject: PSExec from 2008R2, access is denied.
Posted: 28 March 2014 at 5:17pm

Local Machine - Old: Windows 2003. New: Windows 2008R2
Remote Machine: Windows 2008R2

We're migrating our provisioning server scripts from Windows 2003 to a new Windows 2008R2 host. The PSExec commands that ran perfectly under Windows 2003 fail running under Windows 2008R2 with:

Access is denied.Connecting to <server>... Starting PsExec service on <server>... Could not start PsExec service on <server>

I haven't done anything to the remote machine because it works perfectly when a Windows 2003 server PSExecs to it. I've tried a half dozen remote machines, all with the same outcome, which leads me to believe the problem lies within the local Windows 2008R2 machine.

Here's the things I've checked:

The version of PSExec is the same on both local machines.
The command structure is the same on both local machines.
The same domain account is used to run the command on both local machines.
The domain account used to run the commands have local admin rights on both local machines.

What am I missing?