Running Putty from the Windows Command Line Ethereal. Mind. The power of the command line. I believe that you should only use the mouse when you dont know what are doing. That is why graphical interfaces exist. If you have a repetitive task, then clicking the same thing over and over shows that you are poor engineer. You need to take control of your tools to work in the smartest way. Pu. TTY is a fine example of having both options. You can clicky clicky all you want and waste hours of of your life pushing your mouse around the screen. Or you can run a lot of the repetitive Pu. TTY actions from the command line. But first thing is to introduce to using the keyboard to get around Windows and open the DOS box. It always surprising how so few people know that Windows can actually be driven using the keyboard and very rarely need to use the mouse. Installation. You need to note the directory that you installed Pu. TTY to, something like this would be the default. Start Pu. TTYSo, we are ready to start Pu. TTY, click start, and Pu. TTY menu will be clearly displayed. So lets create a telnet session for a device in our network by entering the details, entering a name in the Saved Sessions box and the clicking on the Save button. Getting to grunter. So normal people would click on Start, All Programs, Pu. TTY, Pu. TTY, Click grunter and the Open. Lot of clicking for not much gain I would say. Starting Windows programs on the Command Line. You can start just about any program in Windows from the commad line. I am always surprised by how many people dont know this. Lets look at starting Windows Notepad from the CLI. That is, from a DOS box, just type the command notepad and the away it will go. None of this clicky clicky business. Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows 10' title='Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows 10' />But we can make this even faster. Fastest Way to open the the command line. The fastest way to open the Windows Start box is to press Control Escape which will open the Windows Start menu as if you had clicked on the Start button. Then press the r key for Run, and type cmd and the Windows DOS box or whatever you choose to call it will open on your screen. Fastest way for Notepad would be. If you are thinging laterally, you would realise that the fastest way to open Notepad would be press Command Escape togetherpress Rtype notepadand press enter. Ok, now we are starting to get much quicker at getting things done. Wheres Pu. TTY People are always telling you how to maximize your mornings, but your morning routinewhatever it may beis fine. What you really need is an afternoon routine. About Cygwin 1. 1. What is it 1. 2. What versions of Windows are supported 1. Where can I get it 1. Is it free software 1. What version of Cygwin is this. Cygwin. mintty2011minttyCygwin. DQbQd.gif' alt='Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows Updates' title='Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows Updates' />So you might think that it would be very easy to just type Pu. TTY using the same technique. But alas, it does not. Give it a go and do something like this you will get. Its all about system paths. MS Windows uses a concept of paths to go searching for where programs are located on your hardware. When using the DOS box, the operating system has no context about where your programs are located on the hard drive. When using the GUI, the information about where the program is located, is contained in the Shortcut that you are clicking on. You could start Pu. TTY by typing something like this but that is too much typing for me. We can tell Windows that the directory where the Pu. TTY program is and to look in there for the program as needed. To the Control Panel System tab then. Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows UpdateIn the Control Panel, System Properties, select the Environment Variables button at the bottom and then select Path in the System Variables section, and press the Edit button. C Program Files. Pu. TTYThis set the path variables to include the Pu. TTY program directory in the search path. You only have to do this once. Windows will set the the Environment Variable permanently from now on. You will need to logout at this point, or restart. The Path Variables are only read once at boot time. When you come back, open the DOS box again Ctrl Escape, R, cmd, Enter just to remind you, and type path to confirm the variables are in place. Alrighty then, lets try that again. Ctrl Escape, R for run, Pu. TTYand we get Pu. TTY opening just like we were doing clicky clicky all day. Ahh, the speed and the comfort Can you feel that But youre right, I want even less clicking. BUT, I still have to click on grunter and then open with my mouse hand. Is strikes me that Pu. TTY was built by people who are really CLI centric so there would have to be options for doing more. Sure enough. In Section 3. Help file, cleverly titled The Pu. TTY command line we get the following details. Is it possible to regex replace from command line Right now Im using notepad to do this. In command line I can only use FINDSTR wich can only locate the mached. Cygwin tools are, in the words of the Cygwin FAQ, ports of the popular GNU development tools and utilities for Microsoft Windows. They run thanks to the Cygwin. The core of Babun consists of a preconfigured Cygwin. Cygwin is a great tool, but theres a lot of quirks and tricks that makes you lose a lot of time to make it. Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows 8' title='Cygwin Windows Is Searching For Mintty Windows 8' />To start a connection to a server called host putty. If this syntax is used, settings are taken from the Default Settings see section 4. Also, you can specify a protocol, which will override the default protocol see section 3. For telnet sessions, the following alternative syntax is supported this makes Pu. TTY suitable for use as a URL handler for telnet URLs in web browsers putty. In order to start an existing saved session called sessionname, use the load option described in section 3. ALRIGHT Even better is this bit. The load option causes Pu. TTY to load configuration details out of a saved session. If these details include a host name, then this option is all you need to make Pu. TTY start a session. Andhra Pradesh Police Manual In Telugu here. You need double quotes around the session name if it contains spaces. So now I can open a DOS box Ctrl Escape, R, cmd, Enter just to remind you again, then type YESFreedom from the mouse A little review then. If you spend all day connecting to equpment, you need to get the connection done as fast as possible. Spending all your life clicky clicky on the cute little mousey is just distracting you from the task at the hand. It just not geek enough, and you need to be hardcore. This technique shows a really fast way to get connected to your devices. It works best for SSH devices although it does, kind of support telnet, just not very well. You can now use the Windows Command Line to connect directly to a SSH host by using this syntax putty. You will need to spend some time learning the keyboard shortcuts that I talked about. Pretty quickly they will become second nature and you will have even more speed and confidence as you move around your network. More options. This really is only just the start of what can do with Pu. TTY, and there are lots more things. If you have a favorite then please contact me using the contact form or put something in the comments and I would be pleased to add it or write it up. Other Posts in A Series On The Same Topic. Putty Fixing Right Click Paste 9th January 2. Putty, the Command Line and NO clicky clicky 5th October 2. Putty Recommended Default Settings for a Network Engineer 2. September 2. 00. 9Setting the Defaults for PUTTY 2. September 2. 00. 9.