One of the cool things about WordPress is that by default it gives you an indicator of incoming search strings to your blog, over the last month or so I have seen an increase in questions asking where Telnet under Vista?. If you have a search around the Internet you will see many articles explaining how you can install Telnet on Vista – however one thing that I do not see being answered is why it is not there in the first place.

From what I understand the key reasons why Telnet (client and server) was removed from default installations of Windows Vista and Windows 2008 are two fold:

• Over time Microsoft believed that they saw a down trend on the usage of Telnet (e.g. less and less people seemed to be using it)
• Due to the reasons above Microsoft saw an opportunity to reduce the overall foot print of Windows (by about 1.5 MB) and decrease the attack surface (which I can see certainly from the Telnet Server perspective – although I believe that even in Windows 2003 and XP the Telnet server was installed but disabled), but it is a little iffy from the client side – but I guess overall the less Executable files you have installed the less the risk to attack you are at.

In this article I would like to take you through how you can simply install Telnet on Windows Vista for use with Exchange, and go through some alternatives to Telnet – as well as some pitfalls and their solutions to using these products.

Installing Telnet on Vista:

The following is a very quick way to install the Telnet client on Windows Vista :-

• Open a Windows command line with Admin Level Rights
• Type in the following command: pkgmgr /iu:TelnetClient and then press <ENTER>
• If you should wish to install the Telnet server type in pkgmgr /iu:TelnetServer and then press <ENTER>

Vista will then install Telnet for you.

HyperTerminal:

HyperTerminal is another tool that you will notice missing from Vista (although I believe that Windows XP didn’t contain it either) – if like me you use HyperTerminal (I actually use it as a full on replacement for Telnet when using Exchange) you can get hold of it here: http://www.sofotex.com/HyperTerminal-Private-Edition-(HTPE)-download_L412.html

Using HyperTerminal with Exchange;

You can configure HyperTerminal to work with default SMTP / POP3 / IMAP virtual servers by using the following down-loadable guide:

Using HyperTerminal with Exchange.pdf

Other software:

There are sooo many alternatives to Telnet under Windows Vista (as their are tones of Terminal emulators both Free and with a cost) out on the market – however PuTTY is another great alternative to Telnet, and when combined with PuTTY “Send Keys” you can script your PuTTY Sessions – this is useful if you need to simulate mail transfers to you SMTP / POP3 servers from a command line perspective.

Problems when using Terminal Based Software connecting Exchange Servers on Vista:

Vista is pretty secure by design. which means that it does not always play ball with certain applications that wish to use certain ports, couple that with products such as Network Associates Virus Scan Enterprise you might find that despite what you try you cannot connect to your Exchange server (especially if you are using SMTP).

Bear in mind that Vista has a built in Firewall (that is quite smart) so if you cannot connect to your server, open up the Windows Firewall configuration first and have a look to see if the application that you are using has both an “Inbound and Outbound” entry (this should not be an issue with Telnet) – however if you are using NAI Virus Scan Enterprise on your Vista workstation – bear in mind to protect you against Mass Mailing worms VSE will block all Inbound and Outbound SMTP via an Access Protection rule.

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