With release 2.2.0, GameMaker adds a new option to Preferences > General Settings to fully log users out whenever they close the IDE.
This feature has been added as a helper to teachers, as often students can forget to log out at the end of every session. When checked, the user will be automatically logged-out when GameMaker shuts down, freeing up the seat for a new session and forcing new users to log-in when starting the IDE.
Note that this does not include when restarting the IDE to change the runtime version in use, or when using File > New IDE to open up multiple IDEs at once (only when you close the last of your IDEs will the logout be performed).
"Remember Me"
Note that GameMaker has always offered the option to "Remember Me" when logging-in. This option remembers the user session and does not ask a user to log-in again until the session expires. If you want users to have to re-enter the password and login each time, then simply untick that checkbox when logging-in. Note that "Remember Me" being unticked does still remember the username.
This new system is an additional level of clearing out the login information, and by default will clear all login information including the username. However, if you do have "Remember Me" ticked, then the username will be preserved.
"Maximum Logins Exceeded"
If you or your students have been shown the "Maximum Logins Exceeded" error when trying to log in to GameMaker and have now checked the Logout on Exit preference you may still need to clear some of your existing login sessions to "free up" some sessions again.
To do this, please go to your Sessions page and click the Revoke button for the seats who are experiencing this issue.
Deploying to Multiple Machines
If you would prefer to force ("automate") this process for all users on all machines, we support setting this Preference via a json format text file. This file can then be pushed to all machines, and all users of those machines will act as if they had the Preference enabled.
To enable this, simply download the file attached to this FAQ and place it into your %programdata%\GameMakerStudio2\ folder (which is usually found at C:\ProgramData\GameMakerStudio2).
If you already have a machine_settings.json file in that folder, then you will almost certainly want to append the required setting manually, rather than just replacing your entire file. To do so, simply open the file in an text editor and add the following key-value pair:
"machine.General Settings.LogoutOnExit": true
Note that JSON format requires all but the last key-value line to end with a comma, so depending on where in your file you add this new line, please add a comma or not as required.
The save and close the file.