Why does the server restart after Remote Desktop logoff

remote desktopwindows-server-2003windows-update

Ok, we have a web server that we remote desktop into from a Windows XP Pro box. The server is Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition, Service Pack 2.

When we log into the server after a windows update it notifies us that it would like to restart the server and gives us two options: 1) Restart Now 2) Restart Later.

In this situation I always click 'Restart Later' and then finish what I need to do on the server. If I log off my remote desktop it then restarts the server. This is not what we want, is there some way to make it not restart?

It seems like my only option is to close the remote desktop connection(by clicking the X button on top right), but when I do that we need to request a trouble ticket to disconnect my RDP connection.

So it seems like I have two options in the above situation:

  1. Log off server and have our server which provides several services be out of commission for 5-10 minutes while it is restarting
  2. Close my RDP connection and have no way to get into the server until tech support resets my RDP connection.

Is there another option?

EDIT:

After more searching on this site I found this question/answer and it seems like the first answer will take care of my situation, does anybody agree?

Best Answer

Your server is almost certainly set to automatically download and install updates, but to not force a restart while someone is logged in. There are local or group policy settings that handle this. When you log off, there's no user logged in to prevent the restart anymore. It's that simple.