In this blog post, I will show you how to enable WinRM in Windows machines (10 and Servers) and give you some background about WinRM.
WinRM
Before we get into the technical bits, let’s understand WinRM. WinRM is a remote management platform that is built into Windows operating systems and based on .NET and PowerShell.
By default, WinRM is enabled on Windows Server but not on Windows 10 machines, which means that you need to enable it, as you will soon see.
Why Do You Need WinRM?
WinRM can help us manage Windows-based machines using remote PowerShell cmdlet without RDP or login into the remote machine. This method allows Administrators to manage multiple machines using scripts and cmdlets.
Enable WinRM
To enable WinRM on a Windows 10 machine, Open PowerShell and run the following cmdlet.
Enable-PSRemoting -force It is important to note that you are not in an Active Directory-based environment, and your Windows 10 machine is not domain-joined. You will need to add the machine you are going to connect from to the trusted host of the Windows 10 machine. please visit this blog post on how to add a machine to the trusted host list.
Enable WinRM using Group Policy
The above option is great if you have a single Windows 10 machine that needs WinRM enabled but what if you have 50 Windows 10 machines in a domain-joined environment? you will need to use a Group Policy. To use a GPO, create a new one or edit existing one modify the following settings and set WInRM to Enabled.
Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Remote Management (WinRM) > WinRM Service > Allow remote server management through WinRM
Don’t forget to apply the GPO to the OU that has all your Windows 10 machines. Once applied in 30 minutes all your hosts will get the policy. In this case, there is no need to modify the trusted hosts’ list.
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