What does "Disconnect" do to a remote computer?

pokeefe0001 · Jul 18, 2022

I've been using Remote Desktop to access a remote computer for about 3 years and have been running on "automatic pilot" when using it. Something seems to have changed but I hadn't paid enough attention in the past to know what is different. What does "Disconnect" do to the remote computer? I thought it ran "locked" until the Power Option's sleep timeout processing would put it to sleep. Now it seems to immediately put the computer to sleep. If I disconnect and then try to get right back on, I can't; I have to do a "Wake on LAN". Has it always been that way and I'm just remembering wrong?

neemobeer · Jul 18, 2022

Under normal conditions disconnect simply drops the connection to the remote system. On the remote computer the session is still running. You would need to examine RDS services on the remote season to see how it handles a disconnect

pokeefe0001 · Jul 19, 2022

OK. That's what I remember it doing in the past. Whew! I'm not loosing my memory. (Much.) I don't see anything obvious in the settings that would cause this, but I'll keep looking.

cereberus · Jul 19, 2022

On my pcs, when you start a remote session, the remote pc is in lockscreen mode.

If a user on remote pc enters password, remote session is disconnected and remote pc is under control of remote pc user.

If local pc is disconnected from remote pc, remote pc still operates and remote pc is in locked screen mode until remote user enters password.

pokeefe0001 · Jul 19, 2022

It sounds like I've managed to hose over the computer. Whatever I've done is probably also whatever is messing up applying maintenance (reported here) where the PC goes to sleep immediately after the "30% complete" restart rather than performing the last 70% of the install.

pokeefe0001 · Jul 24, 2022

A clean reinstall fixed the problem of immediately going to sleep after RDP disconnect. I don't know about the sleep during maintenance but I'll find out soon. On the down side, I now have about 50 programs to reinstall. A pain, but I think I done only one other clean install of this computer since I got it almost 10 years ago as a Win7 machine. All the hardware has been replaced over time, and upgrades to Win10 and Win11, but only one clean install 5 or 6 years ago. It's about time.

jimbo45 · Jul 24, 2022

Normally another issue is that RDP sessions can't power on a remote computer if it's powered down whether remotely or locally. There might be some hardware around to allow remote power on but I don't know about any.

Disconnect just keeps the remote computer running (new user whether local or remote will have to sign in again).

VM's also can usually be disconnected too --i.e they are still running in the background. If you say logoff then the VM gets logged off !!!.

Cheers
jimbo

pokeefe0001 · Jul 24, 2022

jimbo45 said:
Normally another issue is that RDP sessions can't power on a remote computer if it's powered down whether remotely or locally. There might be some hardware around to allow remote power on but I don't know about any.

If by "powered down" you mean powered off, I also don't know of anything. And I'm not sure about hibernation. But for sleep, "Wake on Lan" processing works fine and NirSoft has a nifty little tool called WakeMeOnLan. (Misnamed: It should be WakeThemOnLan since it runs on the local machine and wakes one or more remote machines.)

I go days without accessing that remote test computer of mine so there's no reason to keep it running. I have it go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity and wake it when I need to make an RDP connection.

hsehestedt · Jul 24, 2022

jimbo45 said:
Normally another issue is that RDP sessions can't power on a remote computer if it's powered down whether remotely or locally. There might be some hardware around to allow remote power on but I don't know about any.

This is where WOL (Wake On LAN) comes into play.

I have several computers in my bedroom, but I like to power them off when I go to sleep to cut down on the number of annoying blinking LEDs in the room (my goodness, some of those little things are pretty bright!).

I have a Wake On LAN utility on my phone as well as on my Laptop so if I need to access something on one of those systems after I have powered it down, I simply send a WOL packet to the computer, and it powers right back up.

A few notes on WOL:

1) This capability needs to be enabled in the BIOS.

2) Some systems won't wake after performing a "shutdown" but will wake from sleep or hibernate modes. This capability varies from system to system.

3) Fast Startup in Windows is a mortal enemy of WOL. Turn Fast Startup OFF if you want WOL to work!

4) Again, depending upon the system, WOL may work with add-on Ethernet adapters, not just the Ethernet adapter built onto a motherboard. As an example, I have an older system (4th gen Intel i7), where WOL works with the built-in gigabit Ethernet adapter. However, I wanted faster speeds so I added a 2.5Gbps PCIe Ethernet adapter and this works flawlessly with WOL as well.

5) Your router can make a difference! I had an ASUS router. When I was using that router I had a lot of difficulties with WOL. Would not work at all on one system, on another system it worked only from sleep and hibernate modes, not powered off even though I knew it worked previously from a full shutdown. Spent hours troubleshooting. Finally got it to work by swapping the ASUS router for an EERO router.

6) Troubleshooting tip: If your Ethernet adapter has status LEDs on it and these LEDs are lit when the computer is in sleep / hibernation / shutdown modes then WOL <SHOULD> work in those modes where the system is still supplying power to the Ethernet adapter.

EDIT: You also need to go into the properties for the Ethernet adapter in Windows Device Manager, Power Management tab, check all three available boxes.

jimbo45 · Jul 25, 2022

hsehestedt said:
This is where WOL (Wake On LAN) comes into play.

I have several computers in my bedroom, but I like to power them off when I go to sleep to cut down on the number of annoying blinking LEDs in the room (my goodness, some of those little things are pretty bright!).

I have a Wake On LAN utility on my phone as well as on my Laptop so if I need to access something on one of those systems after I have powered it down, I simply send a WOL packet to the computer, and it powers right back up.

A few notes on WOL:

1) This capability needs to be enabled in the BIOS.

2) Some systems won't wake after performing a "shutdown" but will wake from sleep or hibernate modes. This capability varies from system to system.

3) Fast Startup in Windows is a mortal enemy of WOL. Turn Fast Startup OFF if you want WOL to work!

4) Again, depending upon the system, WOL may work with add-on Ethernet adapters, not just the Ethernet adapter built onto a motherboard. As an example, I have an older system (4th gen Intel i7), where WOL works with the built-in gigabit Ethernet adapter. However, I wanted faster speeds so I added a 2.5Gbps PCIe Ethernet adapter and this works flawlessly with WOL as well.

5) Your router can make a difference! I had an ASUS router. When I was using that router I had a lot of difficulties with WOL. Would not work at all on one system, on another system it worked only from sleep and hibernate modes, not powered off even though I knew it worked previously from a full shutdown. Spent hours troubleshooting. Finally got it to work by swapping the ASUS router for an EERO router.

6) Troubleshooting tip: If your Ethernet adapter has status LEDs on it and these LEDs are lit when the computer is in sleep / hibernation / shutdown modes then WOL <SHOULD> work in those modes where the system is still supplying power to the Ethernet adapter.

EDIT: You also need to go into the properties for the Ethernet adapter in Windows Device Manager, Power Management tab, check all three available boxes.

Hi there
Thanks for the info -- always good to learn about this type of stuff even if I don't have or use it.

Cheers
jimbo

What does "Disconnect" do to a remote computer?

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