How to stop Remote Desktop from closing my session due to inactivity?

Question

I'm connecting from a windows vista desktop to a server running windows server 2003. I'm using Remote Desktop and I'm running some very long running processes on the remote server. My problem is that Remote Desktop logs out my session and terminates any running processes after some amount of time without input from myself. This means I need to sit at my pc wiggling the mouse every now and then rather than head out and enjoy the glorious sunshine for a few hours.

Does anyone know how I disable this behavior? I assume it is configurable somewhere.

Solution 1

Using Group Policies (best practice) Open Group Policy.

In Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Terminal Services, Sessions, enable the settings you want to configure. See the policy explain text for more information.

Or

Using Terminal Services Configuration Open Terminal Services Configuration.

In the console tree, click Connections.

In the details pane, right-click the connection for which you want to modify time-out settings, and then click Properties.

On the Sessions tab, above End a disconnected session, select the Override user settings check box. This allows you to configure time-out settings for the connection.

Configure the following time-out settings as appropriate:

In End a disconnected session, select the maximum amount of time that a disconnected session remains on the server. When the time limit is reached, the disconnected session ends. When a session ends, it is permanently deleted from the server. Select Never to allow disconnected sessions to remain on the server indefinitely.

In Active session limit, select the maximum amount of time that a user's session can remain active on the server. When the time limit is reached, either the user is disconnected from the session or the session ends. When a session ends, it is permanently deleted from the server. Select Never to allow the session to continue indefinitely.

In Idle session limit, select the maximum amount of time that an idle session (a session without client activity) remains on the server. When the time limit is reached, either the user is disconnected from the session or the session ends. When a session ends, it is permanently deleted from the server. Select Never to allow idle sessions to remain on the server indefinitely.

Source

Solution 2

For Windows 7/Windows 10/Windows Server 2012 and above:

• Press Windows+R and type gpedit.msc
• Navigate the tree view on the left to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Remote Desktop Services/Remote Desktop Session Host/Session Time Limits
• Adjust the four settings as desired (I believe you want to adjust Set time limit for disconnected sessions and Terminate session when time limits are reached)

Solution 3

I ran into the same problem, but was unable to access the Group Policy or Registry, due to restricted privileges.

However, I found another solution which uses Windows Script Host to run a piece of JScript which will toggle Scroll Lock every five minutes, for one hour.

Here's the script. Just save it with a .js extension, and run it with "Microsoft Windows Based Script Host".

var WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
for (var i = 0; i < 12; i++) { // Loop 12 times
    WshShell.SendKeys('{SCROLLLOCK}');
    WshShell.SendKeys('{SCROLLLOCK}'); // Toggle Scroll Lock
    WScript.Sleep(300000); // Wait 5 minutes
}

If you want to change the key being pressed, check out this link, and swap out the SendKeys parameter for another character.

---

The same solution, in PowerShell:

[void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("'System.Windows.Forms")
$allowCloseAfter = (Get-Date).ToUniversalTime().AddHours(24)
while ($allowCloseAfter -gt (Get-Date).ToUniversalTime()) {
    [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait("{SCROLLLOCK}")
    [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait("{SCROLLLOCK}")
    Write-Host '.' -NoNewline
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 300
}

Comments

[Giraffe]

See also serverfault.com/questions/205902/… and stackoverflow.com/questions/32224067/…

[user1841702]

I don't see the terminal services in the group policy...?

[Darwyn]

@deostroll it's been renamed to Remote Desktop Services for newer versions of Windows

[costa]

I tried this but it didn't work for me. The VM is on a domain though. I am not too sure if there is a domain policy that overrides the one I set up.

[Dave Burton]

On client side or server side? There doesn't seem to be anything called Remote Desktop Services in Win10 Home (my client side). Did you mean that this has to be configured on the server side? (That won't work for me, because the server side is CentOS 7 Linux, not Windows.)

[HerrimanCoder]

caffeine.exe seems much easier, but simply doesn't work for me inside a remote session of RD, both local PC and remote PC are win10.

[JohnLBevan]

For those wanting a PS version: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/…

[RonJohn]

This did not keep my RDP session active.