By default, Vista installs without telnet available. I know, I know, you should be using SSH for everything now, but sometimes you just need good old telnet. Here is how to enable telnet in Vista:
1. Open ‘Control Panel’
2. Select ‘Programs and Features’
3. In the left column, select ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ (get ready for the annoying UAC prompt)
4. Check the box next to telnet (and any other obscure services you may want enabled), and wait while Vista thinks for a while.
Thats it, now you can administer your network devices in as unsecure manner as possible!
Popularity: 25% [?]
July 10th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Hey, I just got this new computer today with Win Vista and I could not telnet with it. I really appreciate that you took the time to explain how to enable the telnet feature on Vista. THANK YOU so much, you guys are fabulous. I followed your instructions and enabled telnet.
Now, to find telnet on here and use it, like I always did on my old computer.
Bless your hearts and everything else. You have saved the day and have helped me more than you can imagine.
Who ever figured this out is a genius. I am ever so grateful and am indebted to you for this help.
Once again, Thank You so very much.
With hopes for your good health, good fortune and happiness.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Laura
Glad we could help!
August 14th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
One great replacement for MS telnet is AbsoluteTelnet from Celestial Software.
It supports telnet, ssh, serial, dialup, plus plenty of emulation options.
http://www.celestialsoftware.net
Brian
March 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Hi, I’ve read your article and I’ve done exactly that in Vista. But I still can’t use telnet. So I looked around for help and I found out that telnet is disabled in Administrative Tools->Services. So if I enabled it it should work, but it wont let me enable it as the button is grayed out. Can you please help me? You may use the email I’ve provided to contact me.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:39 am
i did enable the telent services from the control panel and now when i telnet from cmd to solaris it give a another error msg
( could not open connection to host on port 23: connection failed )
June 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Yeah im confused ive even tryed to telnet my IP and i get a “Press any key to continue” and when I do, it says connection to host failed, what do I do?
September 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for writing procedure to enable the telnet……..This site really doing good job to all
September 24th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Sometimes in Vista when you are running CMD you will need to right click on the CMD icon and select on ‘run as administrator’. For some reason Vista runs things on the lowest permissions level possible and this disqualifies you from some things. So remember: ‘run as administrator’
October 13th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Cheers !! Mate was of great help
October 16th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
hey thanks mate its really great help, i was tired to make it up abuout the telnet but now its simply working great idea .
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Hi everyone, I am doing research for a report. I’m researching a topic
involving telnet and ftp. Part of that topic deals with the following.
“The telnet and FTP protocols send password information in the
clear. Despite this security risk FTP and telnet are still used
frequently.”
Although I am aware reasonably of the security risk. I am not so aware
of the reason why people still use the FTP and telnet. Is there any
documentation on the net for the reason why people are still using it.
If anyone knows i would be happy to hear. I have found quite a bit on
why not to use it but little if none on why it still is being used
instead of SSH or SFTP.
Kind Regards.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
What about after you do this and they won’t open from a browser like in this site:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Catalogs/telnet_problems.html
I tried the third option on that and it’s still not working for me. I can telnet fine if I open a command prompt, type in the address and go. But I should be able to click on a telnet link and it do all that for me.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am
ive tried all the stuff here and still cant telnet, all i get is the following mesage {could not open connection to host on port 23: connection failed )is there any other way of enabling telnet
December 4th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
After I clicked on the ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ link, the window that popped up did not show any features even if I’m administrator of my computer. Any ideas? thanks!
January 20th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Ok when i have telnet open it connects but i cannot see anything. When i type anything in it doesnt display anything. What do i do.
January 28th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Thanx a lot man,,
it was really needed……..
May 11th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Thanks a lot for posting this. Its been so useful.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Thanks very much for that…
July 28th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Appreciate it! Works Great Thank you very much
September 11th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Thanks much. I really appreciate your answer because it gave me the required solution.
Cheers!!!
December 25th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Hey your the best dude
December 30th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Hi.thanks bro , thanks.
kirom men kose deit.
best wishes
January 20th, 2010 at 9:43 am
How do you open up a port such as 995 or 587 when you are in a public place to allow your gmail emails to be delivered to outlook or you to be able to send outgoing emails through outlook
March 15th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Ah that was easy to do. Thanks for the tips.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I use putty. Its better and why you want to use Vista anyway..
May 21st, 2010 at 9:06 am
Immense Help! thanks much.
July 14th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Thanksa ,ot for the interesting post.
July 15th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Agree. So I looked around for help and I found out that telnet is disabled in Administrative Tools-Services.
September 9th, 2010 at 1:12 am
In a developing country, we are still learning on computers and technology.
With this sort of very helpful website, it really helps to speed up our understanding and learning.
Thank you so much, arsgeek.com !!!
You have really helped me with my telnet issue.
Keep up the good work and blessed be your wonderful site.
September 27th, 2010 at 2:43 am
I would’ve been stuck on this for a while, thanks for letting me know how to get telnet working on vista (need to reformat with a better OS one day)…
October 24th, 2010 at 4:06 am
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November 9th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
In case anyone is curious exactly how long does it tke..
“thinks for awhile” is an understatement.. okay my clock says 1102pm .. its been going for awhile ill report the time its done this..
“Please wait while the features are configured. This might take several minutes.” Are they sure its not several hours..
finally at 11:06pm the progress bar had moved to almost finished .. then soon after at 11:07pm it was finished.
Total time ~10 minutes.
November 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Way better way to secure the POS O/S Vista, with some Telnet authentication right?
December 14th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I really appreciate your answer because it gave me the required solution. I tried twice and after some process of couple of minutes. It gives error that process is not success full.
January 20th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Being able to telnet from windows vista is so good to use. This helps us at work all the time.
January 21st, 2011 at 5:31 am
The above steps very easy to apply and it can help to enable telnet in Windows Vista very easily. Keep sharing more updates.
February 7th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
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February 17th, 2011 at 6:06 am
Currently I am using window vista. I like it because of it’s advance features.
February 19th, 2011 at 6:39 am
I am sure a lot of people will benefit from it. Thanks!
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March 15th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Hi, I’ve read your article and I’ve done exactly that in Vista. But I still can’t use telnet. So I looked around for help and I found out that telnet is disabled in Administrative Tools->Services. So if I enabled it it should work, but it wont let me enable it as the button is grayed out. Can you please help me? You may use the email I’ve provided to contact me.
March 29th, 2011 at 4:57 am
I really appreciate your answer because it gave me the required solution. I tried twice and after some process of couple of minutes. It gives error that process is not success full.
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May 7th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Good tips for Windows Vista man.
May 31st, 2011 at 1:18 am
Now we need to know how to enable telnet in Windows 7, is it any different than Vista?
June 1st, 2011 at 9:03 pm
SecureCRT is a paid software but a lot (really a lot) better than native telent solution.
June 12th, 2011 at 4:58 am
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June 15th, 2011 at 1:06 am
Thanks so much! I’ve been dying without telnet! I didn’t think Vista even had a telnet, but I also didn’t know about the “Turn Windows features on or off,” either. I’ve been having to use browseas.com’s telnet and PuTTY, and I don’t like either of them.
And.. finally loaded all of the features. Yup, there’s telnet! Thanks again!
June 15th, 2011 at 1:30 am
Jeez, it took 20 minutes to get past 0% on the loading bar to configure it and finished the rest in two minutes. In the meantime I’ve grown slightly attached to PuTTY. Oh well. Off to vanilla telnet for me!
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July 13th, 2011 at 7:45 am
Thanks a lot for sharing this. Wish to get this type of article again and again. I’ve been dying without telnet! I didn’t think Vista even had a telnet, but I also didn’t know about the “Turn Windows features on or off,” either. I’ve been having to use browseas.com’s telnet and PuTTY, and I don’t like either of them.
And.. finally loaded all of the features. I want to such article again and again.
July 13th, 2011 at 8:06 am
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August 14th, 2011 at 3:07 am
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September 15th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
For all the people who get the error message about port 23:
Port 23 is the telnet port. So if there is an error, either port 23 is blocked on the computer you are using or the one you are trying to access. It’s usually being blocked by your firewall or antivirus software, so try configuring those to leave port 23 open.
Hope this helps
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