Yearly Archives: 2011

The Best Tabbed SSH Solution in Windows 7

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PuTTY has been the standard SSH utility for all of my Windows based workstations since approximately 2002.  It is a clean, easy to use, lightweight utility that reliably allows various SSH/SSL functionality from a Windows client.   However, PuTTY has grown to become a very strange and atypical application.  The last version published was in April of 2007 (that is LITERALLY 4 years ago). It has a gigantic list of feature requests and bug fixes.  Yet, it is still unexplainably the mainstay and flagship SSH client… And I really just don’t understand why that is.  I mean really… 4 years?  There are two Microsoft OS releases in that time that a developer should be considering features and usability within.  I simply don’t get it.

Well, I’m initiating a changing of the fucking guard.

Vast amounts of Google research has yielded me a very sufficient and actively developed fork of PuTTY called “KiTTY“.   KiTTY is obviously based on PuTTY’s source, so it retains all the reliable and usability – but it also adds a slew of new and highly requested features that seem to be destined to never reach a build of PuTTY. Some of the biggest for me are:

  • Session based username/password saving
  • Send to tray functionality
  • Transparency (not the “real” transparency… it overlays the wallpaper.  But at least it’s trying!)

Sadly, even in it’s actively maintained state, KiTTY does not support a tabbed interface.  I MUST have a tabbed interface.  I have searched the ends of the internet for a GOOD and FREE client for SSH that can support a tabbed interface.  This simply does not exist in a single package.  You can fork out some cash for something like SecureCRT; or you can use something sub-par like Poderosa.  But meh, who wants to do either of those things??

One has to resort to a connection manager software, such as Putty Connection Manager, Super Putty, or (by far the best) mRemoteNG.  I strongly recommend mRemoteNG.  It has a vast amount of configurability, supports VNC, RDP, and other protocols on top of the SSH capabilities; and it runs very well and seemingly bug free on a Windows 7 installation.  The other two certainly cannot say that.

mRemoteNG even allows you to choose a custom path for your PuTTY executable (so, browse to kitty.exe)  😛

I followed these steps for an awesome tabbed SSH experience like no other; with support of multiple protocols, high amount of configurability, and even transparency!  I recommend every sysadmin do the same thing.  I’m sick of PuTTY being the undeserved king of this realm.

  1. Download KiTTY and save it wherever you like
  2. Download mRemoteNG installer, install it
  3. Open mRemoteNG and then click on Tools, Options.  Click the “Advanced” button on the bottom right.
  4. Set your custom PuTTY executable path to your KiTTY executable
  5. Create some sessions, set the protocols, even save the usernames and passwords if you like
  6. Triumphantly raise your hands in the air, as you have the best possible SSH setup known to man.  Here’s a screenie of my setup at home.  I disabled transparency because my laptop doesn’t perform very well with it enabled.

Windows 7 Right Click Lag on Desktop Shortcuts

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I’ve had a nagging issue lately that has really been bugging me.  Whenever I right click on a shortcut on my desktop, I get a 1-2 second lag before the context menu will pop out.  It wasn’t a “huge” deal so I put it off for a rainy day.  When I finally started trying to figure the problem out, I naturally resorted to Googling.  This is a case where Google couldn’t help.  There are too many results talking about generic right-click lag; or lag when you right click just on the desktop area.  My issue was a bit more specific; in that I was right clicking specifically on a shortcut.

I used procmon to determine that the nVidia drivers were making wild registry/file calls (big suprise, it’s nVidia’s driver).

I then started searching through context menu entries in the registry trying to make sense of how to resolve the issue.  I could fairly easily see how the layout worked, and that each file type had it’s own context menu entry set.  After some trial and error, needless reboots, and co-worker confirmation: These steps are confirmed to resolve the issue.  NOTE:  if you are not comfortable editing a system registry; make sure you take steps necessary to have appropriate backups (A good idea even if you are comfortable with regedit).

  • Start, run/search, and type “regedit” minus the quotes
  • Delete the key named “OpenGLShExt” from the relevant locations (I chose lnkfile and exefile respectively
    1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\OpenGLShExt
    2. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\OpenGLShExt
    3. Make sure you delete the entire key; not just the default value within the key.
  • If you notice right click lag on any other filetypes, as I did notice .bat, .msc, and a couple others; just repeat the same steps at that section of the registry. Maybe even get rid of ALL the references to this horrible key.
    1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\OpenGLShExt

These keys were certainly causing the 1-2 second lag when I right clicked on shortcuts.  Once they were deleted, I instantly saw the lag disappear without even needing to reboot. Now hopefully Google can index this and try to help some other people out.  Since it took me about 5 hours total to get to this point.  🙂

My Personality

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Recently at work we have been trying to improve communications skills and tactics.  As part of that, we’ve had to learn and determine our Myers Briggs personality type.  These personality types are widely researched, studied, and considered a very accurate representation of a person’s traits.

The general idea is that you have to determine your personality traits you have.  For example:  Are you introverted or extroverted?  Do you rely on senses or intuition?  Are you a thinker or a feeler?  etc.

There are various means of self-rating and determining; as well as plenty of online test/questionnaires that make an attempt to determine your personality type for you.  When I self-rated, I came out as an “ISFJ” – which I must say is a pretty accurate description of my personality.  See below:

“The ISFJ feels a strong sense of responsibility and duty. They take their responsibilities very seriously, and can be counted on to follow through. For this reason, people naturally tend to rely on them. The ISFJ has a difficult time saying “no” when asked to do something, and may become over-burdened. In such cases, the ISFJ does not usually express their difficulties to others, because they intensely dislike conflict, and because they tend to place other people’s needs over their own. The ISFJ needs to learn to identify, value, and express their own needs, if they wish to avoid becoming over-worked and taken for granted.”

However, I was interested to see that I sometimes am rated as an INFJ when I take online tests/questionnaires that determine my personality type for me.  And this personality type does also seem to run quite parallel to mine.  Specifically, one section quite strongly caught my eye:

“INFJs may fantasize about getting revenge on those who victimize the defenseless. The concept of ‘poetic justice’ is appealing to the INFJ.”

That concept does really ring pretty heavy with me – as most of my favorite movies and TV shows always seem to have some degree of a revenge/justice theme.  I’ve even blogged about it before.

Whether I’m an INFJ or an ISFJ I guess doesn’t really matter that much – but overall it’s been an interesting experience of self-reflection to try and determine and label my various personality traits.  It’s also fun for me to try to guess my friends/family members. So if anyone reading this knows theirs, feel free to comment.