Global Protect - Connect before logon Questions

[vcpdragon]

Good Afternoon, 

I have two requirements that I am trying to meet with Global Protect:

1. Pre-logon for a new or existing remote user that has never logged onto a new pc. I set this up and it seems to be working fine and smoothly transitions the user over to the gateway after login no issues. The user is then able to connect and disconnect at will and everyone is happy. 

2. And for those that need login scripts and such we require "connect before logon" - I added the required registry entries and this is working as expected .. kind of ... The issue I am running into is the user does not have the ability to disconnect from the vpn while logged into windows. I am also finding that I have multiple instances of GP in the systems tray but when I try to open them .. they start disappearing one by one until eventually I have one left. I try to open the one and it disappears. I can then try to open GP from Applications and it will not open. Our gray globe shows disconnected, but the vpn is connected and working, but disappears when I try and open the app. The only way I am able to disconnect the vpn is to logout and disconnect it from the Windows login page. It's like one big game of whack-a-mole :). Ideally I would want the user to be able to initiate the vpn before login and then have the ability to connect and disconnect within the existing windows session, but I can not seem to make that happen. 

Has anyone ever ran into this issue? If so, how did you resolve it?

Specs: 2x 5520's Active/Active running 10.1.5-h2 

Global Protect v. 5.2.9

Windows 10 v. 21h1 

Thanks 

-vcpdragon