How to Clear Hung Remote Desktop Sessions

Occasionally, an RDS session (or Parallels RAS Remote Desktop session) will 'hang' in the log-off (sign-out) stage. This can make it impossible for the user to log back in (sign back in) and get back to work.

The most common cause of these hung sessions is that there is a hung application process causing the Sign Out process not to complete normally.

The most common applications (that we've noticed) causing problems:

• Microsoft Paint
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Outlook

Regardless, when using RDS or Parallels RAS, it is sometimes necessary for an administrator to manually intervene to get things rolling again.

You can take these steps to clear a hung RDS session:

1. Log into the RDS server as an administrator
   • Generally using the Domain Administrator account
   • You can use the Parallels Client or the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client
2. Open the Task Manager on the RDS server
   • Right-click an empty spot on the Task Bar and choose Task Manager
3. Select the Users tab
4. Right-click the hung session (user name) and choose Sign Off
5. If the session completes the Sign Out operation and disappears, you are done
6. If the session is still hung:
   1. Click on the small triangle to the left of the hung session to expand the view
   2. Right-click the suspect application process (usually a Microsoft app) and select End Task
   3. If the session completes the Sign Out operation and disappears, you are done
7. If the session is still hung:
   1. Right-click the next suspect application process (usually a Microsoft app) and select End Task
   2. Continue to kill processes until the session completes the Sign Out operation

Once the session is completely signed out, the user will then be able to sign back in and get to work.