How to detect if a Power Automate Desktop flow is running unattended on a VM?

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Posted on by razec18

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When an automation is running via Power Automate Desktop, is there any explicit service or process running on the virtual machine (VM) that indicates a flow is being executed unattended?

The reason for my question is that I would like to detect whether such a service or process exists on the machine. If I find that no such service is active, I would like to either shut down or delete the VM.

Is there a way to identify this reliably?

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Power Automate Desktop

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eetuRobo 4,587 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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The way you run Power Automate Desktop flows unattended is to run it from Power Automate Cloud and choose Run Mode to be Unattended. Then it will always attempt to run the flow unattended. If there is no user session available that could run the flow unattended it will fail. Unattended also needs a license to be able to run.

It wont run it attended unless you have chosen the Run Mode to be Attended. So there shouldn't be a need to try to detect if the flow is running unattended or attended since you configure that to the flow.
razec18 123 on at

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Thank you for your detailed response and explanation! I appreciate your time in clarifying how the unattended mode works and the configuration required to run it.

However, my question is slightly different. I am already aware that a flow is running in unattended mode on a VM. What I would like to know is whether there is any specific service or process that runs on the VM during the execution of an unattended flow.

My goal is to create another flow that can check if such a service or process is active on the VM. If it detects that the service or process is not running, I would like to proceed with shutting down or deleting the VM to optimize resource usage.

Could you provide any guidance on how to identify such a service or process that signals an unattended flow is actively running?

Thank you again for your help!
eetuRobo 4,587 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Ah apologies for the misunderstanding on my part. I don't know if any such service or process exists.