Sometimes when I have logged onto our Windows 2003 Terminal Server there have been over a dozen idle sessions. Many of these sessions have only been idle for short periods of time, but often we have sessions that have been idle for many hours, and sometimes even days.
Today I decided to limit the amount of time that disconnected sessions can sit idle for. I figured that allowing a disconnected session to be idle for 1-day would be generous enough, but still save on the idle terminal server sessions.
There are two ways to set up Windows Terminal Server Session limits. One through the Terminal Server Group Policies, and the other way using Windows Terminal Services Configuration. Because I only run two Windows 2003 Terminal Servers I have decided to use the Windows Terminal Services Configuration to limit the idle session time.
Here are the steps that I followed on each Windows Terminal Server:
- Opened the Terminal Services Configuration from Administrative Tools
- Clicked on “Connections” on the left side bar
- Right clicked the “RDP-tcp” connection type
- Open up the “Session” tab and then above “End a disconnected session” I selected the “Override user settings” check box.
- Then in the drop down next to “End a disconnected session” I can then choose how long after session disconnect it ends the session. I chose “1 day” as my Terminal Server session disconnect time.
- Click on “OK” to save your settings and close the Properties box
That’s it. Now 1 day after someone disconnects from their terminal server session their session will be ended and it will no longer use up system resources.
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