Prevent concurrent logins windows 2008

And of course I suggested that users could just be more conscientious about logging off when they leave their computer and before they start a new session.

But management said that that just will not happen and will not work for our environment. So the question is, do any of you have experience with this issue? Do you know of any settings or third party apps that at least minimize the conflicts even if it does not eliminate them?

Is there any way to make it so that the computer does a periodic logoff and log back on that is transparent to the user?

First, there's nothing wrong with using roaming profiles so long as they're implemented correctly. Just because they're an older concept doesn't make them any less useful or valid in today's IT environment. Roaming profiles were not designed with the intention of one user per PC and one PC per user, they were designed for your exact use case, one or many users who log on to multiple computers be they workstations or Terminal Servers.

The intention was to give the user a consistent environment desktop, application settings, etc. Second, implementing some type of automatic logoff mechanism doesn't solve your problem as it doesn't prevent a user from having multiple logons across multiple computers simultaneously. When your automatic logoff mechanism kicks in you'll still have the same problem. Third, folder redirection can help the situation by redirecting some folders out of the roaming profile but it doesn't solve the problem because all of the users folders can't be redirected.

There are core components of the roaming profile ntuser. Fourth, there isn't a setting that will log a user of of their session based on their logon hours setting. The two settings that have to do with logging a user off and disconnecting their session based on their logon hours disconnects them from SMB shares, it does not log them off of their desktop session. There are settings for terminating logging off a user session on a TS, based on various timings idle, active, disconnected.

You have, unfortunately, a technical problem, caused by a behavioral problem, that can't be completely solved with a technical solution. Here are some suggestions that may help:.

This will prevent any user from having more than one session. Educate your users on developing the habit of logging off before leaving for the day. If management balks at the idea, then they're partly to blame if the problem persists.

The big problem with roaming profiles is that they were designed long ago in the mids for one specific use case: one PC per user and one user per PC. In that scenario roaming profiles work reasonably well, but if the scenario changes, they faily miserably. The "last writer wins" problem caused by concurrent sessions is very well known in the terminal server world where I have been working for a many years.

Because of so-called silos it is very common there that users have more than one concurrent session. That file is changed in every session, so it is written always back when a session is logged off, overwriting any existing versions of that file in the network. Unfortunately, there is no way to work around this with roaming profiles alone. I helped create one such product which was later sold to Citrix and is now bundled with their major products XenApp and XenDesktop.

DAT residing on the network. Other commercial products solve the last writer wins problem, too. I am afraid I do not know of any free solution. Folder redirection mitigates most of the problem as most writes happen in near real time, though over the network. I have seen people get locked out of their specific, not folder documents because they forgot to close them. You can in addition try logging off if idle if you can get management's buy in, it means your users will have to save their work before leaving, but they should do that anyway.

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That way every time the user logs in on another device the previous one will be invalidated and only one session will be valid at a time. You may even just be able to use express-session 's req. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. How to prevent concurrent login for a web application using express-session Ask Question. Asked 3 years, 7 months ago. Active 3 years, 7 months ago.

Viewed 3k times. Open to other better solutions if any. Suresh Prajapati Suresh Prajapati 3, 3 3 gold badges 22 22 silver badges 36 36 bronze badges. Add a comment.