Remote Desktop closes Explorer window and changes open-app taskbar icon order while disconnected

Question

Due to the need to get into a number of complex administrative applications quickly upon reconnect, I have to leave those applications and a Windows Explorer window open when I disconnect my admin session from a Remote Desktop server. The admin account is exempt from the forced-disconnect/logoff components in the Group Policy that apply to end users.

So the admin session is never closed upon disconnect, and the apps are all still open as I left them when I reconnect, even if it is occasionally two or more days later.

But there are two anomalies when I reconnect. It does not happen every time, and I can see no pattern:

1. The Windows Explorer window that I left open is sometimes closed, and
2. The order of the open apps on the taskbar changes. They are all still there, but the order has been shuffled. This is kind of a pain, since these are key data management applications that I use heavily enough that getting them out of order on the taskbar means I have to drag them into order so I can work efficiently.

This is on Windows Server 2019 DataCenter, however, the same thing happened previously on a Windows 2016 Standard server.

Answer 1

I am the system & domain admin for these servers, and, as I already stated, the GPO's are configured to disconnect end users and end their sessions thereafter, but none of this applies to domain admin accounts, including the default domain admin account I use for this. That is, I have already definitively ruled out any effect of GPO's.

And yes, all other applications continue to work correctly; only the order on the taskbar changes. And there are no memory issues on this server. It is very lightly used for a few RemoteApps for other users during peak production hours and my continuously-open Remote Desktop 24/7.

I could have stated previously that I have also ruled out anything trapped as an error on the server. Even during peak hours, it runs at only 10% - 15% CPU usage and 20% - 25% memory usage. There are no related events in the System or Application logs.

And this is not a crash of the Explorer app; it is only that the open Windows Explorer Window closes and taskbar open application icons are re-ordered.

Answer 2

Hello,

May I know how are you configured to preserve session state after disconnection, and is the following policy enabled? If not, try enabling the policy.

In the meantime, will the other applications work properly when the session reconnects while the Explorer on the remote server accidentally shuts down automatically?

Regarding the automatic shutdown of the Explorer, check the memory usage on the server. A high memory usage may cause the Explorer application to crash, for which you can view any errors or warnings related to the application crash in the application log and system log in the Event Viewer. Before viewing the query, enable Display Analysis and Debug logs.

For the application in the taskbar misorder problem, this may also be caused by the application crash restart. You can use this tool to analyze application startup on your server: Windows Performance Recorder | Microsoft Learn

I hope this helps. If you have any further questions, please contact us.

Best regards

Jacen