A.6.4 How can I create a Windows shortcut to start a particular saved session directly?

To run a PuTTY session saved under the name ‘mysession’, create a Windows shortcut that invokes PuTTY with a command line like

\path\name\to\putty.exe -load "mysession"

(Note: prior to 0.53, the syntax was @session. This is now deprecated and may be removed at some point.)

A.6.5 How can I start an SSH session straight from the command line?

Use the command line putty -ssh host.name. Alternatively, create a saved session that specifies the SSH protocol, and start the saved session as shown in

question A.6.4

.

A.6.6 How do I copy and paste between PuTTY and other Windows applications?

Copy and paste works similarly to the X Window System. You use the left mouse button to select text in the PuTTY window. The act of selection automatically copies the text to the clipboard: there is no need to press Ctrl-Ins or Ctrl-C or anything else. In fact, pressing Ctrl-C will send a Ctrl-C character to the other end of your connection (just like it does the rest of the time), which may have unpleasant effects. The only thing you need to do, to copy text to the clipboard, is to select it.

To paste the clipboard contents into a PuTTY window, by default you click the right mouse button. If you have a three-button mouse and are used to X applications, you can configure pasting to be done by the middle button instead, but this is not the default because most Windows users don't have a middle button at all.

You can also paste by pressing Shift-Ins.

A.6.7 How do I use all PuTTY's features (public keys, proxying, cipher selection, etc.) in PSCP, PSFTP and Plink?

Most major features (e.g., public keys, port forwarding) are available through command line options. See the documentation.

Not all features are accessible from the command line yet, although we'd like to fix this. In the meantime, you can use most of PuTTY's features if you create a PuTTY saved session, and then use the name of the saved session on the command line in place of a hostname. This works for PSCP, PSFTP and Plink (but don't expect port forwarding in the file transfer applications!).

A.6.8 How do I use PSCP.EXE? When I double-click it gives me a command prompt window which then closes instantly.

PSCP is a command-line application, not a GUI application. If you run it without arguments, it will simply print a help message and terminate.

To use PSCP properly, run it from a Command Prompt window. See

chapter 5

in the documentation for more details.

A.6.9 How do I use PSCP to copy a file whose name has spaces in?

If PSCP is using the traditional SCP protocol, this is confusing. If you're specifying a file at the local end, you just use one set of quotes as you would normally do:

pscp "local filename with spaces" user@host:

pscp user@host:myfile "local filename with spaces"

But if the filename you're specifying is on the remote side, you have to use backslashes and two sets of quotes:

pscp user@host:"\"remote filename with spaces\"" local_filename

pscp local_filename user@host:"\"remote filename with spaces\""