SFTP, which stands for Secure File Transfer Protocol, is on the other hand not available by default. This can be problematic in situations where secure connections need to be used. A basic example is a web server that is only supported SFTP connections because of security restrictions.

Swish is an Open Source Windows Explorer extension that adds SFTP to the list of supported protocols.

windows explorer sftp

The developers have released an early alpha version of the SFTP extension to the public. It currently supports 32-bit Windows operating systems and a set of basic features that the developers plan to expand in the future.

The SFTP extension supports password and keyboard- interactive authentication, host-key verification, drag and drop transfers to and from the SFTP server and file management options that include renaming or deleting files on the server.

The getting started section on the developer website explains how to create new SFTP connections.

• Windows Vista & Windows 7
  Open Computer. Double-click on the Swish icon. Click the Add SFTP Connection button. Complete the details in the dialogue and click OK. You should see a new connection appear in the Explorer Window which you can double-click to access.
• Windows 98/2000/XP
  Open My Computer. Double-click on the Swish icon. Select Tools from the menu bar and then Add SFTP Connection. Complete the details in the dialogue and click OK. You should see a new connection appear in the Explorer Window which you can double-click to access.

Experienced users will likely still rely on programs like WinSCP to manage SFTP connections. Swish on the other hand integrates into a well known interface which means it could be a viable alternative for users who prefer Windows Explorer over third party software.

The developers plan to integrate additional features including file modifications and public key authentication into future versions of the extension. Interested users can download Swish from the developer homepage.

WinSCP provides access to file operations such as copying or moving files, editing files directly in the interface, creating folders, renaming files and folders and change a file’s or folder’s properties including chmod.

WinSCP 4.2.7 is a bug fix release that fixes four issues encountered in previous versions of the Windows software program.

• Increased maximal size of accepted SFTP packet.
• Bug fix: Failure when closing connection after another failed connection.
• Bug fix: Root path was not remembered as last working path on a drive.
• Bug fix: Hang-up after closing connection

The new version of WinSCP is provided as a download directly on the developer’s website. The program is portable and compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

AutoPutty is a portable software program for Windows that can manage servers for all four software clients that have been mentioned in this article. Manage in this regard means that system administrators and webmasters can add server information, that is hostname or IP, port, username, password and type (WinSCP SCP or SFTP, Putty, Remote Desktop or VNC) in the program to connect to the server more quickly.

The system administrator can access the options of Autoputty to define the paths to the various applications and other settings like commands that should be executed or private key files for authentication (where supported). It is furthermore possible to password protect the application itself so that only authorized users are able to manage the connections and servers.

Autoputty (via Techie Buzz) is a free download for the Windows operating system. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 and uses less than one Megabyte of computer memory in minimized state. The biggest benefit of the program for system administrators is that it can manage servers for several applications which makes it a tad easier to maintain and connect to them.

WinSCP comes with the tools to backup the session data. The setting is hidden in the preferences of the scp client.

Server administrators need to check the Advanced options box in the lower left corner of the application to reveal addition options that include backups. Preferences will appear in the list of options after enabling the checkbox.

Selecting preferences in that menu and a click on the appearing preferences button will open a new window with lots of new options. The Export button in the left corner can be used to save the session information as an .ini file.

The ini file needs to be transferred to the new computer system. The easiest way to use that ini file is to delete the existing winscp.ini file in the new installation and replace it with the old file. The old file needs to be named winscp.ini as well. It can be that the storage settings of the program need to be edited as well if the ini file is not recognized by WinSCP.

WinSCP supports storing data in the Windows Registry or in ini files. If the former is the default the ini file will not be loaded. The storage location can be edited in the storage options under Preferences.

WinSCP should then use the ini file and display all stored sessions properly in its interface.

I can then copy files from and to my dedicated server using this secure connection. I upload new websites this way or download mysql backups or other files that i want to store locally. Well, today version 4 of WinSCP was released as a beta. The main additions are ftp support (remember it supported SFTP before only) and SSH tunnel support. The later feature is not that important for me but the first is really nice.

The changelog for WinSCP 4.0 beta lists a lot of bug fixes and changes that would be to much to list here at my site. Just take a look at the changelog at the official site if this is really interesting for you.

What do you use to connect to a dedicated server ? Remember that I’m still using Windows mainly which limits the choice of programs that I could use.

I did write about some of them here at ghacks already but I guess only the die hard ghacks readers will know about this. I would like to start with a tool that I have been using for some time now. It is called Hamachi and the main benefit is that it is able to simulate a lan over internet. This is great if a game only offers lan play for instance. I do not suggest you use it for the following purpose but it is possible. Many games require serial numbers and those numbers are checked when you connect to a game server on the internet. They are not checked if you create a lan game.

System Tools:

Please insert the CD into the drive and restart the application. I hate this message. Forcing legit users to have the CD / DVD in drive to execute the program is something I never understood. Pirates crack those protections in seconds and legit users have the problems with methods that are supposed to make it harder for pirates. Something is wrong here. I do like Daemon Tools which emulates CDs on your hard drive. Create an image of the CD, mount it in Daemon Tools and you may use the software without the Cd.

That shitty movie is not playing. I don’t see a picture, I hear no sound. Have you ever witnessed something like that ? This could be due to a missing codec on your system. Gspot analyzed a movie file and displays the codecs it is using. Did I say that I hate the fact that there are billions of codecs out there ? Waste of time and energy.

Notepad 2 replaces Notepad which ships with every windows installation. It offers more features than Notepad like syntax highlighting.

Rbtray makes it possible to minimize every window into the system tray instead of the task bar. If you are like me and dislike crowded task bars this tool is for you.

I like my computers as silent as they can be. One method to achieve this is to use a software that is able to control the speed of the fans in your pc. Speedfan is my choice. It displays temperatures for important system components such as processor, motherboard and hard drives and lets you change the fan speed if that is supported on your system.

Vippy the writer friendly cursor changes the cursor into a eye-friendly one. This is great if you have troubles finding the cursor in a text document. Vippy changes the color of the cursor to red for instance.

Internet:

Ghacks is running on a dedicated server and I have to make the connection using a terminal program. I do use Putty for this, it is fast and clean and does exactly the things that I need it to do. I do use WinSCP to connect download backups that I made from the dedicated server. SFTP means secure file transfer.

I have a Skype account to talk to my friends and see who is online at the moment. There is no charge if both users are connected to the Skype network. I do prefer Teamspeak while gaming. Teamspeak has the advantage that more users may chat and talk at the same time while Skype has that limited I think. When I was playing WOW we were using Teamspeak with more than 40 people in one channel. Don’t worry, you can moderate everything.

If you want to view tv on the internet you should take a look at tvu player which offers some interesting channels to choose from. To name a few: ABC, ESPN, Comedy Channel, CBC, Fox and more. All free, with relative good quality. You need a broadband connection for good results.

You need some additional tools if you want to save video streams. Most providers hide the real url to the stream making it impossible to detect it by normal means. Url Snooper comes into play and detects the real address by analyzing all network traffic.

I need a local test installation of ghacks to test new features before I make the upgrade on the running site. XAMPP offers everything I need to have a local Apache installation with PHP and MYSQL support. It is great for learning and testing upgrades.

Security:

You might remember the Sony rootkit incident. They planted a rootkit on some of their CDs and users had a hard time getting rid of it. Rootkit Revealer is one of those tools that helps detecting and removing rootkits.

Other:

I do not buy lots of new CDs but sometimes I buy some used ones on Ebay or Amazon. I don’t have a CD player at all so I have to get the songs from the CD on my computer to be able to play them and transfer them to my Ipod. CDex is the tool I use for that purpose. It is fast, pulls all relevant information from the internet (author, title, songs..) and adds them automatically to the songs.