Putty is is a great piece of software. Because it works and it’s free I find it installed on most corporate desktops as the default software for terminal client on Windows. ((After all, Microsoft doesn’t supply any SSH in Windows or even telnet capability in Vista)). Not many people seems to realise that Putty is highly customisable and has a number of features that will improve your working environment.

When putty starts….

When putty starts it uses the default configuration. But where does the default configuration come from ? And how can I set the default’s for every session. This is the standard opening screen for putty:

Standard Opening Screen for Putty

Lets change the default terminal length to 40 lines instead of 24. (A more detailed discussion for WHY you would do this in Setting the Terminal Window Length)

Changing putty default window length to 40 lines

Head down to the Window Category on the left, then click into the Rows and change the value from 20 to 40.

Set the terminal length to 40 lines

Now, in the Category Window, head up to Session, and then click on Default Settings.

Save the Default Setting

Now click the SAVE button.

And then

From now on, everytime you open putty, the window will be forty lines long.

Just to be clear, anything that you change is any of the windows can be set as the default using this process.

Other posts in the series

1. Putty - Fixing Right Click Paste
2. Putty, the Command Line and NO clicky clicky
3. Putty - Recommended Default Settings for a Network Engineer
4. Setting the Defaults for PUTTY (This post)