Shutdown Windows When Remote Desktop Connection Closes

Question

I am trying to build a "desktop in the cloud" using the Apache Guacamole service and Google Cloud VMs. I have accepted that I can not boot a VM on a RDP connection, but I am wondering if there is a way to shut down a machine on RDP disconnect.

I have a Windows Datacenter VM hosted as my "desktop" and Apache Guacamole hosted on another server to RDP into the desktop. To save money I would like to shut down the VM when I disconnect. Basically, when I terminate the RDP connection can I detect that and trigger shutdown?

I am not averse to writing bash or python scripts to accomplish this task, but I need some direction.

Thanks, Owen

Answer 1

As per Squashman's recommendation:

I created a task in the Task Scheduler that is triggered by a disconnect from the user and had it run a bash script to shutdown the machine.

Thank you!

Script:

SHUTDOWN /p

Answer 2

This will works for me. Windows batch script

@echo off
 
REM Wait for 10 minutes
timeout /t 600 /nobreak
 
REM Check for active RDP sessions
query session | find "rdp-tcp#" > nul
if %errorlevel% equ 0 (
    REM If active RDP session found, cancel shutdown
    echo Active RDP session detected. Shutdown cancelled.
    exit /b
)
 
REM If no active RDP session found, initiate shutdown
shutdown /s /t 0