Tricks with Putty

As I go from location to location I like to keep a small cheatsheet of steps that have come in handy over the years. Of these is my trick for capturing Putty settings from the Windows Registry.

Most of this information I gathered from the web but I'm posting it here so I have it for my own reference.

I. Where PuTTY Settings are stored

The settings for PuTTY are stored in the windows registry. These steps show how to back-up those settings, edit them, and re-load as needed. Note that you should make a backup copy of both the registry and PuTTY settings file before loading any modifications.

 

II. Saving the Settings

These steps will export the PuTTY settings out to a text file on your Windows desktop.

1. Exit to a command prompt by running cmd.exe

2. Run the following command (remember to insert your username):
REGEDIT /E “C\Documents and Settings\\Desktop\PUTTY_SESSIONS.REG" "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions\"

This should create a '.reg' on your desktop. Please make a backup copy of this file and only edit the copied file (i.e. keep a file to re-load in the case the settings are corrupted). Once you are done editing the file, double-click to load back into the registry.