Server 2019 Terminal Server Edge Browser on Multiple Sessions

SamSquanch22 1

Any way to make the Edge browser work on Multiple sessions on a terminal server with Server 2019?

You can launch Edge on one session but if you try and launch it in another session nothing happens.

I don't see any errors in the event log.

1 answer

ShiJieLi-MSFT 8,026 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-12-14T06:35:42.79+00:00

Hi @SamSquanch22 ,

The problem is exactly that the two sessions do not share the desktop although they are logged in with the same credentials. The desktop does not mean the "Desktop" folder but the logical entity in windows where the applications run. Therefore, the instances running in both sessions can't see each other and the first one locks the profile for exclusive use which is critical to ensure no profile corruption can occur.

The best workaround is to make sure every logged-in user gets their own profile. You can achieve that by --user-data-dir flag. For example:
msedge.exe --user-data-dir=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\%CLIENTNAME%

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Shijie Li
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SamSquanch22 1 Reputation point

2022-12-28T22:30:10.407+00:00

This doesn't do anything helpful.

It creates a new directory in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge named %CLIENTNAME% or whatever I replace that with.

It still does not enable me to launch a second browser in another session.

ShiJieLi-MSFT 8,026 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-12-29T02:40:17.737+00:00

Hi @SamSquanch22 ，

The %CLIENTNAME% on different sessions are different, aren't they? Actually, I mean you should make sure every user has a unique username and profile. For example, User 1 uses msedge.exe --user-data-dir=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\User1 and User 2 uses msedge.exe --user-data-dir=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\User2. That is because Edge is simply not designed to permit more than one session to be using the same browser profile.

SamSquanch22 1 Reputation point

2022-12-29T19:02:19.617+00:00

Let me clarify. I need each user with multiple sessions using the same username to be able to open Edge in multiple sessions.

Each user is able to open Edge once across all their sessions. If they try to open it again on a different session, nothing happens until they close Edge on whatever other session has it open.

There is no problem with each user being able to open Edge, it only becomes a problem when a user tries to open Edge again in another session using the same user account. We run multiple sessions for each user to get work done.

I find it hard to believe that Edge cannot be opened on multiple sessions while Internet Explorer was able to. Or maybe I can believe it...

ShiJieLi-MSFT 8,026 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-12-30T01:55:07.39+00:00

Hi @SamSquanch22 ,

Yes, I totally get it. Unfortunately, that's how Edge, or rather, modern browsers work. If multiple users are using the same username, they just cannot run Edge at the same time, unless every user has a unique username and profile. Modern browsers like Edge heavily depend on the SQLite library which doesn't permit write access from more than one process. So, in order to get everything to work, I hope you can try my suggestions. Thanks for your understanding.

shenglong li 0 Reputation points

2023-09-26T09:04:46.2733333+00:00

hello, professor, may I ask you a question? I encountered the same problem when multiple users connect to a terminal server, they could not open edge at the same time. When the first user opens edge, the edge window opened by the other user will jump to the first user's session. How could I fix it? Thanks.
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Server 2019 Terminal Server Edge Browser on Multiple Sessions

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