Keep Remote Desktop going if Host falls asleep

Hi,

I am using my home PC (Win 10) to connect to my headless Server (Win 2016) via Remote Desktop.

If my home PC goes to sleep then my Remote Desktop session pauses and then resumes once my home PC wakes up.
This is quite annoying especially if something is running on the server and then my home PC goes to sleep. I don't want to keep my home PC on all the time just to keep the remote desktop session alive. Is there a way to keep the remote desktop session alive whilst my home PC sleeps.

The only solution to come to mind is to run TightVNC instead. Any other suggestions?

Hi there
@snifftheglove

The problem basically is that if your server is running an application started by you then it will pause if your user becomes suspended -- i.e in sleep mode or whatever . You can get round this by running (if possible) an application in the background (on the server) so in fact having things like a music / video server running shouldn't be a problem as you can connect to it at any time.

That's why on the whole I prefer Linux boxes as servers - especially for running headless -- really simple with things like CRONTAB to schedule tasks like backups to be run at specific times .

I'm sure though as Windows 2016 server is a professional product there must be ways of scheduling jobs to run whether you are logged on or not.

Without knowing what types of work you are doing on the server it's difficult to give any more advice. One thing I'd look at though is say running some Linux VM's on the server -- these can then do all sorts of things - even submit jobs to the server etc without you having to connect via RDP.

The problem inherently with Windows (not server editions) is that they are essentially single user systems so when logged off or in sleep mode" processes started by that user are quiesced - unless background jobs !!

Cheers
jimbo

Interesting, my experience has been decidely different. I have several machines that I run headless where my only access is via remote desktop. I have all sorts of tasks running on those systems that continue to run for weeks and months even if my remote desktop connection is suspended. These include:

Recording live television broadcasts
compressing video (which I start manually and which continues when remote desktop is suspended)
software downloads
performing automatic backups or even manually initiated backups which continue when remote desktop is suspended
performing other automated tasks of various kinds
sending automated e-mail responses
lots more!

Basically, anything that doesn't need direct user interaction should be able to continue on even while your remote desktop session is suspended.

Of course, you need to make sure that the system is not configured to go to sleep after a period of time. I don't know right off the top of my head where the sleep / timeout settings are for Server 2016, but unlike client operating systems, the server systems are usually not set to sleep by default.

So the test to determine if this is what is happening would be to hookup a monitor / mouse / keyboard just temorarily as a test. Do your programs get suspended after some period of inactivity? If so, that would indicate to me that the issue is one of the system going to sleep and suspending operations.

- - - Updated - - -

snifftheglove,

The more I think about this, the more it bothers me . Do you have any more information about this? Is it some specific apps that are getting suspended?

Let's face it, there are data centers filled with tens of thousands of Windows servers that all run headless and have no problems continuing to perform their tasks when remote desktop sessions are disconnected so your experience is not the norm.

Or am I simply misunderstanding the question?

Let me know some specifics and maybe I can even stand up a 2016 server and see if I can recreate your scenario.