VNC disconnect at remote system user logout, Windows 7 64bit

[ryeookin2]

At work we're changing our pc OSes from XP > Windows 7 pro 64bit, and in doing so I ran into a big issue. When one is vncing into a pc and from that pc you have the user logoff, UltraVNC disconnects every time when the pc is running Windows 7 pro 64bit (not sure about the 32bit). As UltraVNC is used at my work on lots of pcs and thus this seemingly small issue will become a large issue as it'll be compounded if we don't fix this issue with this image we're tweaking before it gets distributed/cloned to the other new prospective upgrade target pcs in our network.

It looks like the issue was said to be a problem with SAS built into Windows 7, and as such I've tried the suggestions located here:
https://forum.ultravnc.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17088

Sadly, setting "Disable or enable software Secure Attention Sequence" to "enabled" and "services" didn't fix this issue for me (I did reboot after setting this in the policy, and yes the policy was enabled).

In any case, has anyone else found a way to get UltraVNC to not disconnect in Windows 7 64bit when you have the remote pc user logoff?

[Rudi De Vos]

1) Possible you are reffering to session switching ( logon desktop -> user desktop)
From Vista> windows use multiple sessions
service = session0
logon=sessionA
desktop=sessionB

As winvnc need to be running in the active session, the server is restarted ( disconnect viewer)
If viewer option "reconnect attemps= 3" is set, this happen in background. ( no need to logon again)

2) SAS
This only works if
-UAC is on and was also on during installation of ultravnc. ( some special security bits are set during install by the UAC engine)
-winvnc running as service
-registry changes ( installer should change them or " winvnc.exe - -softwarecad": runas admin to start winvnc.exe)

[ryeookin2]

Hi Rudi,

As for #1:
Ok let me see if I understand you correctly, are you saying that since Vista and later use session switching that avoiding the UVNC disconnect when one logs a remote user off of a windows 7 machine is unavoidable? To that end I've experimented with setting the "reconnect attempts" and "timeout" and after testing a variety of permutations, the best I could do was get it reconnect me 25 seconds later (setting the reconnects attempts=3 and timeout to 10 and it reconnects in 30 seconds). Is there no way to improve this further?

As for #2:
Are you saying here that if we enabled UAC (and then installed UVNC), ran winvnc as a service (which we do) and make a registry change that this would solve the issue with UVNC disconnecting a remote user when the local user logs off? This would fix that problem?

If I'm a little unclear as to that last step with regards to registry changes, etc. Would you mind elaborating there please?

Thank you for your time!

PS- I was trying to use my original login "ryeookin" but I apparently broke it as it states now "Your account has been manually deactivated and is only able to be reactivated by an administrator." Any chance you wouldn't mind reinstating this (I would have PM'd you but it wasn't letting me)?

[Rudi De Vos]

#1 From Vista the OS use indeed different isolated sessions.
A service can not longer interact with the desktop ( OS security). The only way we can make vnc work is to
let the service monitor the active session ( console) and restart the desktop part of winvnc each time the active session change.
Current there is no way to improve it as the network is in the desktop part of winvnc.

#2 No, UAC is needed to be able to ctrl-alt-del
This has nothing to do with the sessions

If you start winvnc.exe with command line
" winvnc.exe-softwarecad"
you don't need to make manual registry changes, it instruct
winvnc to change the registry.

[Prisma]

Current there is no way to improve it as the network is in the desktop part of winvnc.

Wasn't that a thing you wanted to change with 2.0.0, Rudi? If you restart this project, let me know. I'll do my best to help you by testing.
cheers!

[Rudi De Vos]

I know, it was already done for pchelpware v2, but making it rfb compatible
isn't that simple. I'm spending all my time on getting this version proper running on all systems.