Remote Desktop RDP logs out user after disconnect - only since latest Updates

Question

I log in to a few different servers using RDP (for a million years) and it's just perfect and quick - on my local network. Client is Win 10. Servers are Win2008 R2 and 2019. I just simply login to the Administrator account and run a bunch of desktop apps that I just want to continue to run. i.e. VMWare Workstation. I know, I know. But that's the simplest way I like to run. From the latest Win updates, I 'think' the fix for the Trickbot malware has screwed this simple setup: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/10/12/trickbot-disrupted/ It look me a good number of hours to even diagnose what was going on - as these are critical VMs running and they would just quit (yet the underlying server hadn't rebooted). So, after all the work of diagnosing the problem - it does seem that only now are the servers forcing the logoff of the session when the session is closed. I've searched alot and not seen many people complaining about this (yet). There are lots of older posts. I'm managed to fix the problem for the 2008 R2 server. The fix was simple and hasn't failed yet: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2122517-log-out-rdp-disconnected-users Yes, I have resorted to TeamViewer - but I just prefer RDP and it's the quickest and nicest. All the suggested fixes for 2012 and above have not worked for 2019. Reg key, GPO, local security settings and I just can't get it back to how it was (forever)... Any hints would be appreciated. I tried all the methods via a user account - but same problem.

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**Edit. Hopefully not speaking too soon. I think I've found the answer. All the instructions talk about adjusting the GPO 2012 and above. But they all only mention Computer Configuration path.

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remtoe Desktop Session Host\Session Time limits>

Set to Unlimited.

But, I thought I should maybe also set the User Configuration as well. Afterall, I do login as an Administrator. So I adjusted those keys in the same way. Anyway, so far, it seems to be holding OK.

Answer 1

I landed on this thread with high hopes but alas, it didn't help me and OP didn't make it clear with a step-by-step guide how exactly did they fix their problem.

I've tried the Group Policy thing including disabling the timeouts, enabling them but setting them to Never, and various regedit tricks. Absolutely nothing helped.

Fact is, I connect to a Win10 machine (hosted on AWS EC2) from my Mac (by using Microsoft's official app), click Close and my server process no longer is listening on the process, meaning that it was killed. Or maybe it's a firewall problem but I doubt it.

So can we get a real solution here, for historical reasons?

Answer 2

Hey can you explain how you do it, that you stay logged in after closing the remote desktop connection.
I run a software and i got alltimes logged of if i close the rdp connection but the software need to navigate in the windows explorer, so it gets alltimes a error by logging off.

You know a way to stay lgged in?