Powershell command works manually, but does not work when executed in Jenkins

Question

I'm having a strange scenario where my command works on PowerShell manually but not when executed on Jenkins PowerShell plugin. I'm new to PowerShell and Jenkins and I'm thinking that there's a rule I'm missing. I looked all over the here and net but I failed to find the solution.

I created a job that executes a PowerShell script that opens an RDP file on my desktop using a freestyle project. It works as expected when executed on Powershell but in Jenkins, the build succeeds but it did not open the RDP.

Here's the script:

Start-Process "$env:windir\system32\mstsc.exe" -ArgumentList "RDP File /h:900 /w:1600" -WindowStyle Minimized

I'm using Windows Server 2016.

Here's what I tried:

1. By default Jenkins uses 32-bit PowerShell, so I manually used the 64-bit but it didn't work.
2. I made sure that Get-ExecutionPolicy is set to RemoteSigned on LocalMachine
3. Run the script using Windows Batch Command
4. I tried opening notepad but it does not work too.

Is this really the behavior of the PowerShell plugin? Is there any points that I'm missing? Kindly help me with this.

Answer 1

To anyone might need this. I was able to execute the RDP via Jenkins PowerShell plugin.

What I did was to go Jenkins' Window Service > Log on tab > Select "This account" and enter your user account credentials.

I suspect this is a security issue. Jenkins by default is using the "SYSTEM" account which does not have enough privileges.