Question PuTTY SSH Quirk on Windows 10

[CMayo]

This probably isn't the best place for my question but I'm having trouble finding any sort of community support for PuTTY SSH. If anyone knows of a more suitable forum, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

With PuTTY pinned to the Windows 10 taskbar, right-clicking the PuTTY icon on the taskbar opens a context quick-launch menu of recent sessions. When a session is selected and the PuTTY window opens, the PuTTY window is in front but doesn't have focus; you must click somewhere on the window (or its title bar) before you can type into it.

I don't recall this behavior under previous versions of Windows but maybe its always been there and has only recently started to bug me... but it seems odd that such a venerable 23-year-old app would have always had this annoying quirk. Opening the same session from within PuTTY works as expected, it's only when opening a pinned session from the taskbar icon.

Any chance someone here knows of a way to get PuTTY or Win 10 to focus on that new PuTTY window once it's opened?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Known issue from AGES ago.

https://superuser.com/questions/951...-work-correctly-with-the-taskbar-context-menu

 

[CMayo]

Known issue from AGES ago.

https://superuser.com/questions/951...-work-correctly-with-the-taskbar-context-menu

Thanks for the tip but that seems to be about another issue, i.e. clicking a session shortcut from the taskbar context menu just opens the PuTTY app, not the shortcut. It seemed to be a related issue so I went ahead and tried all the remedies but nothing fixed the focus problem.

One suggestion seemed helpful, though; create a desktop PuTTY shortcut to the session and add that shortcut to the taskbar. I may do that for my most frequently-used session.

 

[Murissokah]

I prefer to use just the binary, so I don't have that context menu to confirm. I don't know if you'd find this an acceptable solution, but you could set the window to "always on top"

 

[CMayo]

I prefer to use just the binary, so I don't have that context menu to confirm. I don't know if you'd find this an acceptable solution, but you could set the window to "always on top"

I decided to just create desktop shortcuts to the sessions I use most (Shortcut target:
"C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load PuttySessionName), then enabled the taskbar Links menu and dropped my session shortcuts onto it. Assuming I can break the habit of right-clicking the taskbar PuTTY icon, I think it'll work for me. With these shortcuts, the PuTTY session windows launch perfectly and I don't have to activate them to start typing into them!

 

[Alabalcho]

I started using MobaXTerm instead of PuTTY, I prefer my targets to be in single window. Don't know whether you can create shortcuts to sessions, though. Also, the free version is limited to like 10 sessions.

 

[CMayo]

I started using MobaXTerm instead of PuTTY, I prefer my targets to be in single window. Don't know whether you can create shortcuts to sessions, though. Also, the free version is limited to like 10 sessions.

Thanks. @Alabalcho. I'll look at MobaXTerm. I have a SecureCRT license as well but I've been using PuTTY for nearly 20 years and it's just second nature now, to the point where I get truly annoyed when I have to do more than select to copy text & right-click to paste it.

 

[vapor_8]

Thanks. @Alabalcho. I'll look at MobaXTerm. I have a SecureCRT license as well but I've been using PuTTY for nearly 20 years and it's just second nature now, to the point where I get truly annoyed when I have to do more than select to copy text & right-click to paste it.

@CMayo as I'm observing the very same issue with PuTTY as you and also saw your question in other forums ... did you ever resolve that issue with PuTTY not having the focus on PuTTY windows having been opened by the right-click context menu from the task bar?

On my end I had a focus logger running and the PuTTY window does not appear in that logger after opening on the desktop.

Thanks for any advise!

 

[CMayo]

@CMayo as I'm observing the very same issue with PuTTY as you and also saw your question in other forums ... did you ever resolve that issue with PuTTY not having the focus on PuTTY windows having been opened by the right-click context menu from the task bar?

On my end I had a focus logger running and the PuTTY window does not appear in that logger after opening on the desktop.

Thanks for any advise!

Sorry vapor_8 but I never did find a resolution. I did find something of a workaround, though. Check my post (four posts up, I think) about using the taskbar's Links menu.