How To Remotely Log Off a User With QUser and Logoff

While installing an update to QuickBooks, I found that the installer would fail because QuickBooks was open by another user. In this case, it was easier to remotely log the user off than find the processes that were interfering. Here is how you do it.

Seeing who is logged in with quser

First, let’s find all the logged in users with quser. Notice that the logged in user named Sally is ID 1 and is in the STATE of disc, which means they are logged in but disconnected. Also you will see that my login session is identified with the > prefix, to make it easy to tell who you are and you don’t log yourself off.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>quser
 USERNAME              SESSIONNAME        ID  STATE   IDLE TIME  LOGON TIME
 Sally                                     1  Disc           10  3/29/2021 12:13 PM
>jptechnical           console             2  Active         10  3/31/2021 4:49 PM

Logging someone off with logoff

It’s funny how often you find out a tool you have used for years does way more than you realized. As an example, for years I have ended a windows session with the command logoff. But I never actually looked to see what the command will do. As it turns out, you can log OTHER PEOPLE off as well, noice! So now I can logoff Sally by the ID number. I will run the quser command again and Sally is no longer logged in.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>logoff 1

C:\WINDOWS\system32>quser
 USERNAME              SESSIONNAME        ID  STATE   IDLE TIME  LOGON TIME
>jptechnical           console             2  Active         13  3/31/2021 4:49 PM