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PuTTY: Integration with WinSCP Portable

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qwertymodo
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PuTTY: Integration with WinSCP Portable

I use PuTTYPortable in conjunction with WinSCPPortable quite often because of the way my college's computer science department is set up, I have to submit assignments from the lab (not over email), so I tend to do remote logins from my laptop. Anyway, regardless of the why, the what is that there are several problems with the integration of PuTTYPortable with WinSCPPortable. There was a post in the "Other Apps" forum that I replied to about some of this, but got no response, so please don't jump on me for cross-posting, I believe I have been quite patient, so I have created a post all unto itself to address this.

These are issues that I can, am willing to (and in some cases already have) code myself, I would just like to see my work go to some good use. I just need to know who to get ahold of and how to post my code once I've done it (John?...)

Anyway:

PuTTYPortableLinker.exe
I have created a workaround for the "please run putty portable before using this" issue. It's annoying. With a little shuffling of the registry, it is no problem at all to make this feature work properly. My workaround is 100% functional.

Using private keys
It's been awhile since I've actually checked on this issue, but the gist of it is this. Neither launcher, WinSCP or PuTTY changes the drive letter for private key files. First off, that needs to be dealt with in both of those launchers. This can be worked around by using relative paths for the location of the private key files. However, secondly, and this is the part that I don't remember exactly, I think that WinSCPPortable changes the current working directory to the directory of the main app exe before launch, and I think PuTTYPortable doesn't. But when you use the PuttyPortableLinker, it tries to open the key using the relative path saved in WinSCP's configuration, but relative to PuTTYPortable, but in such a way that even if I, say have the key in Data/settings of BOTH apps, it still can't find it (what I'm saying is WinSCP would find it at, say ../../../Data/settings whereas PuTTY would find it at, say ../../Data/settings because of the current working directory issue). Either, way, using private keys currently doesn't work properly.

Also, PuTTYPortable should delete the "WinSCP Temporary Session" at shutdown if it exists. It's called a temporary session for a reason.

There was one other thing that was bugging me but I can't think of it off the top of my head...

I am willing to work on PuTTYPortable, WinSCPPortable, and PuTTYPortableLinker if somebody would actually find it useful.

Freakshow
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I recently started using

I recently started using portable apps. The whole concept is great but I stumbled upon some of the same issues that you describe here. And very little can be found regarding a solution (or even people having the same issues for that mather).

If you have a workaround for the "please run putty portable before using this" issue than I would love to have that. It indeed is really annoying and it would be great if Portable Putty and Portable WinScp be better integrated.

The private key files issue I've solved using relative path's as well. It's a little dirty that these path's are not the same in both apps, but I can live with that.

The "WinSCP Temporary Session" bug is also rather strange. Hopefully someone than fix this some day.

Another problem I have, is using pageant. Pageant seems to be portable, so I just put the pageant.exe in the same dir as putty.exe. Only thing is, that when you start pageant, it reads the 'saved putty sessions' from the windows register, and not from the 'portable putty (file)register'. When you run putty, the (file)register takes over. But when you close putty, the problem exists again. This is why I think there should be a 'real' portable version of Pageant some day.

qwertymodo
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I've fixed both the "please

I've fixed both the "please run putty portable" issue and the left-behind temporary session. The first is an updated PuTTYPortableLinker.exe, and the second is an update to PuTTYPortable.exe. I'm not exactly sure where my source went, but I'm sure I could dig it up if you're interested (it seemed nobody was, so I never really went anywhere with it, but I DO have the fixes working... somewhere...).

Quamquam omniam nescio, nec nihil scio.

qwertymodo
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Found it :)

Found it Smile

Looks like I also managed to fix the relative paths to the key files being different between the two apps. I don't believe I did anything about drive letters, so stick to relative paths. Also, do you know if Pageant uses the same registry node as PuTTY (HKCU\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY)? If so, I have an idea that should get Pageant working portably as well.

PuTTY 0.60 Portable
WinSCP 4.1.8 Portable
Yes, I know WinSCP is an old version, but it's what I had when I did this, and I haven't had a chance to compare 4.1.8's official launcher to 4.1.9's to see if there are any differences.

Quamquam omniam nescio, nec nihil scio.

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