Bye PuTTY, Microsoft Is Adding a Native SSH Client and Server to Windows

If you are on a Windows machine and your work involves remotely managing or developing on Posix servers via SSH, chances are that not only have you heard about PuTTY, it's likely amongst the first few software you install on any new machine. It seems Microsoft may finally be giving you a reason to say goodbye to the popular SSH and Telnet client, as the company is planning to add a native SSH client and server to Windows via PowerShell.

"I'm pleased to announce that the PowerShell team will support and contribute to the OpenSSH community - very excited to work with the OpenSSH community to deliver the PowerShell and Windows SSH solution," Angel Calvo, Group Software Engineering Manager, PowerShell Team, announced via a company blog post.

With Windows set to add a SSH server as well a client, not only will Windows users be able to log in to Linux, Unix, OS X, and other machines via SSH, these clients will also be able to log in to Windows machines over SSH.

Unfortunately, there's no timeline on when this is likely to happen. "The team is in the early planning phase, and there're no exact days yet." Calvo added. "However the PowerShell team will provide details in the near future on availability dates."

Of course this is not the first time that the PowerShell team has tried to add SSH support, but Calvo is hoping to be third time lucky.

"The first attempts were during PowerShell V1 and V2 and were rejected," he said. "Given our changes in leadership and culture, we decided to give it another try and this time, because we are able to show the clear and compelling customer value, the company is very supportive."

Given its huge install-base, PuTTY is unlikely to disappear even when Windows gets a native SSH client, but it will probably no longer be in the list of the first few apps developers install on any machine.