Remote desktop not continuing to run programs when I close it

Question

I am using remote desktop to install and setup Windows Server 2008 R2. I'm having an issue when copying hundreds of GBs of files to the server. When I close remote desktop it is supposed to keep my session running and the copying running.

The problem I'm having is that once I close RDC the coping and the running apps just stop. I am not using the logoff, instead I am just closing out of RDC. It says my apps will keep running that everything will be the same when I log back in, but when I do, everything quit.

Any insight?

Solution

If you are copying the files via a mapping to \\tsclient\c (or whichever drive on your client you are transferring from) then the copy will terminate because the connection to \\tsclient is lost when you close the RDP client. Instead, create a mapping to \\<computer_name>\<share> and transfer from there. In this case the copy should continue.

Also, ensure that you do not have a timeout configured for RDP sessions which forces the session to terminate after a period of inactivity. In the Terminal Services Configuration tool, check the settings for the RDP connection to ensure that "End a disconnected session" is disabled, and that the "Active session limit" and "Idle session limit" are also disabled.

Comments

[Philip]

The server might be configured to not allow disconnected sessions (so you get logged off as soon as you close the RDP application).