Q:

Any easy ways to play an audio file on a remote PC

I have a requirement to remotely trigger the playing of an audio file on a remote PC.
The PC in question may not be on the same domain as the triggering system. It may be running either XP or Vista. The audio file can be on the remote machine.
I have all of the local logon details for each remote PC.
I could write a client/server service application that could handle the automatic connection, negotiation and playback, but I was wondering whether there are any options that are supported by each OS that I could trigger remotely. 
For example  I can do this all easily using MIcrosofts Remote Desktop Connection manually, but is there a library that I could call?

A:

Take a look at the Sysinternal tool suite. Especially the psexec tool does what you want. It allows you to run any command on a windows remote machine, even executables, that only exists on your machine.

Introduction
Utilities like Telnet and remote
  control programs like Symantec's PC
  Anywhere let you execute programs on
  remote systems, but they can be a pain
  to set up and require that you install
  client software on the remote systems
  that you wish to access. PsExec is a
  light-weight telnet-replacement that
  lets you execute processes on other
  systems, complete with full
  interactivity for console
  applications, without having to
  manually install client software.
  PsExec's most powerful uses include
  launching interactive command-prompts
  on remote systems and remote-enabling
  tools like IpConfig that otherwise do
  not have the ability to show
  information about remote systems.

For some deeper insight of how this works, take a look at this or this article.

