How to Stop Application Starting on Terminal Server Login

[Mark Stevens]

I have an application which a user is running on their server. It's set to
load in the startup group for the administrator. I was told this is the way
it has to be.

The problem is that when a remote user logs in on terminal server as an
administrator my application starts up again. I asked the admin person if it
could just be started when the server loads and not when every admin user
logs in over terminal server but I was told no.

Is this really true? Or is there a way to restrict applications from
starting when terminal server starts a session?

Thanks for any information...

Mark

 

[Vera Noest [MVP]]

If I understand you correctly, the application needs to run
continuously on the server, is that correct?
So after a reboot of the server, you must logon as Administrator?

This kind of applications should not be started interactively in a
user session, they should be designed as services, which start at
boot time (under the local System acount, or any other account
with the necessary priviledges). If the application is not
developed as a service, you can still try to run it as a service,
with a utility called SRVANY, which is part of the Resource
Toolkit.

If it turns out that the application will not run as a service,
and it can't be rewritten easily, then you could still achieve
what you want in a couple of ways:

* start the application from a batch file, and check the value of
%CLIENTNAME% or %WINSTATION% or %COMPUTERNAME%. These variables
tell you if you are logging on at the console or through a rdp
session. Start the application only if you log on at the console

* start the application from a logon script. Define this logon
script in a Group Policy, which applies only when you log on to
the console. Define a GPO without this script for TS session,
using loopback processing of the GPO with the replace option.

* create a special administrative account, which is only used to
logon to the console. Put the application only in the Startup
folder of this user

I'm sure there are a number of other ways to do this. But again,
the best way is to run the application as a service, since you
wouldn't have to logon to the server to start the application.