Pulse Secure NEtwork Connect 8.1.12.56235 drops VPN on switch user.

[PReinie]

I have one user that when VPN connected on Win 7 Pro via DameWare (MRC 11.2.0.91) when I use Switch User the VPN drops.

This persists after reboot and reconnecting.

The reconnect sometimes says another session is still up. We disconnect that other session.

The user and I both connect remotely to the VPN.

It is only on this one user's laptop. The user is connected via wifi (hotel) and on battery power (90% charged). Power settings normally have "allow computer to disable the wifi network adapter" set (checked) however that only is supposed to activate for sleep/hibernate, never when active.

Is there a setting that drops the VPN on switch user? We know if the user logs off VPN drops so we don't do that.

[zanyterp]

The expectation is that switching users should disconnect the VPN. Are the users that you are not seeing this on using Pulse or Network Connect? Is this user using Pulse or Network Connect?

[PReinie]

I would not expect switch user to drop VPN and this one computer is the only one that did.

Since then the user returned home and switch user did not drop VPN so it is suspected it was the hotel's WiFi that was the problem.

[PReinie]

We normally use Network Connect but for this I may have tried Pulse Secure 8.1 too.

[zanyterp]

Thank you for confirming the client.
Network Connect did allow the tunnel to persist through switching users; it makes sense that the hotel WiFi may have been the culprit since the behavior does not happen at home.
Pulse is not expected to persist through switching users.

[PReinie]

Our users run as non-admins. It saves a lot of time administering the laptops and helps protect the user when they accidentally click on a link and malware gets loaded - but often only partially because without admin priv the malware never completely installs. It also prevent users from installing gaming and other non-corporate software.

However, there are times when I connect to the user's laptop and have to sign in to the admin account to get the work done. (User logins can't use appwiz.cpl and perform other maintenance functions even when started from an admin command prompt.)

But we can't help the user when connected via Pulse Secure as it drops the connection on switch user. Unfortunately, corporate prefers we use Pulse Secure.

Our work-around is to also have NetWork Connect VPN client installed and we talk the user through connecting to VPN with that and it lets us switch accounts without dropping VPN... as long as no active user signs out of their Windows account.

[Gillie01]

While connected to VPN, launch an application as another user (hold shift when right mouse click) type in your desired account.  This will create the profile folder for that user, then allow the switching of users.

[Akuvar]

This worked! Thanks so much!