vb.net - Sendkeys On Disconnected RDP Session

Question

I have a VB application which is scheduled. It focuses on some cmd windows and performs sendkey actions. This works fine when I have the RDP session open, it's only when I disconnect (not logoff) that the issue occurs. (This task is running on a virtualised server).

When I open the RDP session again after the task has ran, the application has thrown an error regarding the login permissions. I presume this is because the user is locked and therefore can't perform the actions?

I need to find a way around this, any help is much appreciated!

Answer 1

Don't use SendKeys.

Instead, if you have a program running in a command prompt, make sure the VB.NET program is the one to open it (or them) with Process.Start, and set the RedirectStandardInput property of the ProcessStartInfo object you pass to True. Then pass commands into the process's StandardInput property as though writing to a file.

This will avoid any focus-change problems, any problems to do with locked screen sessions, most if not all potential problems with integrity levels, most if not all problems with timing, and probably some other stuff I'm not thinking of.