php exec is not executing the command

Question

I have tried to use exec() with 'whoami' to check if it works and I got the result of

nt authority\system

Now I need to run a .exe file with parameters from PHP via the exec() function. 

When I run this command from the PHP file:

exec('..\..\some_file.exe folder="C:\path_to_folder" param=1.xml report=2.xml');

Even exec('notepad.exe'); is not working. Does something have to be done with PHP configurations maybe?