Windows Vista Telnet.exe – where the hell did it go?
A really useful little application on any OS is telnet. Not because it’s good to telnet to systems for admin purposes (as it’s not very secure… although some systems, like Cisco, may still require it) but because it’s very useful for checking if ports are open.
You know, like “telnet 192.168.1.80 1433″ to see if SQL is running on a box, etc.
So anyway, turns out this little gem has been removed in Windows Vista. The why isn’t important, coz frankly I can’t think of single good reason for this.
The good news is, it’s not pulled, it’s just not installed by default. All you need to do is go to the “programs and features” under control panel, and select the Windows Features section. Then just tick the Telnet Client tick box. You won’t even need your install DVD.
Now because the file is a whopping kb or so, it takes about 10 minutes to install… (yes it really does) but this is really just a standard action when you change installed Windows components, as it has a lot to check.
So the short of it is, telnet’s not gone.. it’s just hiding. Let’s hope this isn’t because it’s being phased out.