PuTTY settings to replicate Windows XP telnet program

Question

I am working with a high voltage power supply that can be remote controlled via telnet over TCP/IP. This worked very well for a few years using the built-in telnet client of Windows XP. As Windows XP is phased out of my work environment, I am now trying to connect to the device using PuTTY on Windows 7.

However, there are some stark differences. The font is different so that the user-interface looks quite weird. Worse, backspace and the keys on the numpad are not working anymore.

I was able to circumvent the backspace key-issue by setting the option terminal->keyboard->backspace key to CTRL-?. I was not able to fix the num-pad issue, although it worked once when I set the terminal->keyboard->initial state of the numpad option to "NetHack".

I am worried that there are more subtle differences. The power supply that I am controlling has the ability to fry expensive stuff if I set it wrong, and the broken UI already caused me to activate a channel that should not have been activated! (Fortunately, nothing went up in smoke.)

How can I configure PuTTY so that it emulates the Windows telnet program as closely as possible?

Answer 1

If you're worried, you're probably better off sticking with the Microsoft Telnet client. Windows still has the built in telnet program, its just not installed by default. To install the telnet client search the start menu for "Turn Windows Features on or off". From the dialog that opens make sure the "Telnet Client" box is checked.

Answer 2

Another colleague of mine managed to figure out the PuTTY settings that fixed the immediate issues:

• In Session, set Connection type to "Telnet"
• In Terminal -> Keyboard, set
  • Backspace-key to "Control-H"
  • The Function keys and keypad to "Linux"
  • Initial state of numeric keypad to "Normal"
• In Terminal -> Features, check "Disable appliaction keypad mode"
• In Window -> Translation, set Remote character set to "ISO-8859-1:1998 (Latin-1, West Europe)" (your mileage may vary on this option; I am controlling an Italian device)

I did not find the same 8x12 raster font that Windows uses in the command window, but that's a minor issue.

However, I decided to follow heavyd's suggestion and install telnet on Windows 7 instead. That way I can be reasonably certain that the UI works as before.