How To: Transfer your PuTTY settings between computer
Putty
stores its settings in the Windows registry. To save a backup of your
Putty settings, you'll need to export this registry key to a file.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham
(
Simon Tatham is the original developer responsible for PuTTy)
1. Click Start->Run and type "RegEdt32" in the "Open" dialog. Click "Ok"
2. One RegEdt32 starts, you'll be presented with an application which looks something like:
3. Press "Ctrl+F" to bring up the Find dialog. Enter the name of the
key, "SimonTratham" in the "Find What" field, and make sure only "Keys"
is checked in the "Look At" section of the dialog. Finally, click "Find
Next"
4. The search may take a while,
reminding us that the Windows Registry is a large and mysterious place
where dragons be. Let's use these few seconds to reflect on the fact
that
you should never, ever, never change things in the registry unless you are absolutely, positively, totally, completely, 100% dead sure that you know exactly what you're doing. When the search completes we'll see the key name for which we're looking.
5. Click File->Export. Give your file an appropriate name like, "putty.reg" and click "Save"
6. We're done! Save the putty.reg
file somewhere safe. The file doesn't contain any passwords or actual
SSH key values so, it's relatively safe from prying eyes. Still, it does
contain your configuration and that kind of data is a private matter.
Importing Your PuTTy ConfigurationTo
import your saved PuTTy configuration on any other Windows computer
simply copy your exported registry key, right click on the file and
click "Merge"
Windows will ask you for confirmation
that you want to import this set of registry values. We know this file
is safe, because we created it but,
you should never import registry information from an unknown source.
That's all you need to know about
moving your PuTTy configuration from one machine to another. This can be
really useful information when upgrading to a new PC or, if you're an
office IT guy where your users all have a standard list of servers they
need to connect via SSH, you can create a reference configuration on
once machine and "share" it between every computer in the office.
End