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Enable telnet in Windows Vista

Tue, Mar 20, 2007

Microsoft, Quicktips, Windows

Talk about it in our Forums

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% [?]

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This post was written by:

cavtroop - who has written 56 posts on ArsGeek.

Cavtroop is a Senior Editor for Arsgeek.com He works for a fairly large software company that you've all heard of, managing networks, systems, and seemingly lots of cranky people. His role at Arsgeek is to be an advocate for change, a catalyst for socioeconomic...nah, too lofty. He's more interesting in chipping in with (not so) relevant news and insights into things that interest him - role playing games, computers, technology, etc.

Contact the author

77 Comments For This Post

  1. Laura Miller-Musselman Says:

    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.

  2. cavtroop Says:

    Laura

    Glad we could help!

  3. Brian Says:

    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

  4. Ashok Says:

    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.

  5. Kaz9845 Says:

    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 )

  6. xbmxkush Says:

    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?

  7. MALLI Says:

    Thanks for writing procedure to enable the telnet……..This site really doing good job to all

  8. Killian Says:

    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’

  9. sumit Says:

    Cheers !! Mate was of great help

  10. Miken Gole Says:

    hey thanks mate its really great help, i was tired to make it up abuout the telnet but now its simply working great idea .

  11. Bruce Says:

    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.

  12. Michael Says:

    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.

  13. sam Says:

    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

  14. neeniya Says:

    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!

  15. sean Says:

    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.

  16. Ashish Says:

    Thanx a lot man,,
    it was really needed……..

  17. Anjlica Says:

    Thanks a lot for posting this. Its been so useful.

  18. neil Says:

    Thanks very much for that…

  19. Roux Says:

    Appreciate it! Works Great Thank you very much

  20. anietie Says:

    Thanks much. I really appreciate your answer because it gave me the required solution.

    Cheers!!!

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  23. Jana Says:

    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

  24. How to Install Linux on PS3 Says:

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  25. Kelly Williams Says:

    I use putty. Its better and why you want to use Vista anyway..

  26. KingGhidra Says:

    Immense Help! thanks much.

  27. Essay Says:

    Thanksa ,ot for the interesting post.

  28. Lotto Says:

    Agree. So I looked around for help and I found out that telnet is disabled in Administrative Tools-Services.

  29. Samson Huvaing Says:

    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.

  30. Josh Parry Says:

    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)…

  31. Machine a Sous Says:

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  32. xsouldeath Says:

    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.

  33. Maps Says:

    Way better way to secure the POS O/S Vista, with some Telnet authentication right?

  34. saymend1212 Says:

    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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    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.

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    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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    SecureCRT is a paid software but a lot (really a lot) better than native telent solution.

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  53. Rorroh Says:

    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!

  54. Rorroh Says:

    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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    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.

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  68. trying to help Says:

    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.
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