diff --git a/testinfra/backend/ansible.py b/testinfra/backend/ansible.py
index 61bf25f8..534c5bd1 100644
--- a/testinfra/backend/ansible.py
+++ b/testinfra/backend/ansible.py
@@ -55,7 +55,15 @@ def run(self, command: str, *args: str, **kwargs: Any) -> base.CommandResult:
             )
             if host is not None:
                 return host.run(command)
-        out = self.run_ansible("shell", module_args=command, check=False)
+
+        ansible_connection = self.ansible_runner.get_variables(self.host).get(
+            "ansible_connection")
+
+        module_name = "shell"
+        if ansible_connection == "winrm":
+            module_name = "win_shell"
+
+        out = self.run_ansible(module_name, module_args=command, check=False)
         return self.result(
             out["rc"],
             self.encode(command),
diff --git a/testinfra/backend/base.py b/testinfra/backend/base.py
index 2aefab94..afb66d93 100644
--- a/testinfra/backend/base.py
+++ b/testinfra/backend/base.py
@@ -279,15 +279,19 @@ def parse_containerspec(containerspec: str) -> tuple[str, Optional[str]]:
 
     def get_encoding(self) -> str:
         encoding = None
-        for python in ("python3", "python"):
-            cmd = self.run(
-                "%s -c 'import locale;print(locale.getpreferredencoding())'",
-                python,
-                encoding=None,
-            )
-            if cmd.rc == 0:
-                encoding = cmd.stdout_bytes.splitlines()[0].decode("ascii")
-                break
+        try:
+            for python in ("python3", "python"):
+
+                cmd = self.run(
+                    "%s -c 'import locale;print(locale.getpreferredencoding())'",
+                    python,
+                    encoding=None,
+                )
+                if cmd.rc == 0:
+                    encoding = cmd.stdout_bytes.splitlines()[0].decode("ascii")
+                    break
+        except Exception as e:
+            logger.warning("Problem occurred during detecting encoding: ", e)
         # Python is not installed, we hope the encoding to be the same as
         # local machine...
         if not encoding: