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Kristin Harvey

@silvercat686987 · Jan 11, 2026 9:01 pm

Windows Setup fails with “Access is denied” when upgrading via GPO

I need to upgrade our PCs from Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC to Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC. I want to perform the upgrade automatically and silently, so I created a scheduled task using the SYSTEM account via Group Policy to run a script. The main part of the script is the command that runs Windows Setup.
I tested this successfully on my VM (using a domain account without administrator privileges) and on a colleague’s PC (he is a sysadmin and has administrator privileges on his domain account).
However, when I applied the GPO to another department, the scheduled task successfully copied the ISO file from shared storage to the local machine, mounted it, and started the setup process, but the setup failed with the following error:
**“This command cannot be run due to the error: Access is denied.”**
What should I do to troubleshoot this issue? Any help would be appreciated.