Awesome RSA and DSA key generation utility for Windows PC

PuTTYgen (64-bit)

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Download PuTTYgen 0.79 (64-bit)

PuTTYgen (64-bit)

  -  948.27 KB  -  Open Source
  • Latest Version

    PuTTYgen 0.79 (64-bit) LATEST

  • Review by

    Daniel Leblanc

  • Operating System

    Windows 10 (64-bit)

  • User Rating

    Click to vote
  • Author / Product

    Simon Tatham / External Link

  • Filename

    puttygen.exe

  • MD5 Checksum

    bf1263f399bb1cca739e17fc9078000c

PuTTYgen, also known as PuTTY Key Generator is a component of PuTTY, a widely known free and open-source terminal emulator, serial console, and network file transfer application that is today used all over the world by advanced users. It provides an added service to the complete PuTTY package by creating RSA and DSA keys for use with the OpenSSH authorized keys files. While PuTTYgen 64 bit comes in a package with Telnet client and some other 3rd party software, some users require its standalone usage, and for them, creators of PuTTY have provided it as a standalone installation.

On its own, PuTTYgen is a very useful advanced networking and security tool that can create both public and private keys for many security standards, with advanced options for setting up the strength of the key and much more. One of the key strengths of this app is its simplicity, enabling power users to gain easy SSH authentication and generation of RSA and DSA keys with incredible ease. The app features just a single simple UI screen, with a well-organized set of options and a built-in user manual that features well-documented usage scenarios for any type of user.

Installation and Use

PuTTYgen comes in an installation package that clocks in at a massive 640 MB, and therefore its transfer to the final hard drive location can last even a few minutes if your PC hardware is on a slower side (especially if you are using an old laptop with a slow storage drive).  However, the installation procedure is fairly straightforward, requiring you only to follow on-screen instructions. Full uninstaller is included in the package.

Once fired up, you will be welcomed with the minimalistic interface that features just a single screen that’s filled with tools and customization areas. At the bottom, you have the primary selection area where you must specify what kind of key you wish to generate. The options are RSA, DSA, ECDSA, ED25519, and SSH-1 (RSA). Above that, you can customize the strength of the key, including the number of bits used (the higher the better) and the random data that is needed for the generation engine.

This random data is provided in an innovative way – by randomly moving the mouse cursor across the blank area of the app. This random movement data is incorporated into the key generation, ensuring that the key is completely unique. The key can be customized with a comment, and additionally secured with a passphrase. The app can also convert the key into other formats if the default one does not suit your needs.

Features and Highlights
  • Fully featured and RSA, DSA, ECDSA, and EdDSA key generation utility.
  • Create a secure SSH authentication key in seconds.
  • Streamlined interface, suitable for professionals who want quick and reliable key generation.
  • Internal support for conversion into other formats.
  • Support for passphrases.
  • Available on all versions of Windows OS.
  • 100% FREE!
Also Available: PuTTYgen (32-bit)

  • PuTTYgen 0.79 (64-bit) Screenshots

    The images below have been resized. Click on them to view the screenshots in full size.

What's new in this version:

- Terminal mouse tracking: support for mouse movements which are not drags
- Terminal mouse tracking: support for horizontal scroll events (e.g. generated by trackpads)
- Backwards compatibility fix: certificate-based user authentication now works with OpenSSH 7.7 and earlier

Fixed:
- in a session using the 'Raw' protocol, pressing ^D twice in the terminal window could cause an assertion failure
- terminal output could hang if a resize control sequence was sent by the server (and was not disabled in the Features panel) but PuTTY's window was set to non-resizable in the Window panel
- GTK PuTTY could fail an assertion if a resize control sequence was sent by the server while the window was docked to one half of the screen in KDE
- GTK PuTTY could fail an assertion if you tried to change the font size while the window was maximised
- the 'bell overload' timing settings were misinterpreted by Unix PuTTY and pterm 0.77/0.78; if any settings were saved using these versions, confusion can persist with newer versions
- SSH authentication banners were not reliably printed if a server sent one immediately before closing the connection (e.g. intended as a user-visible explanation for the connection closure)
- the 'close' command in PSFTP always reported failure, so that ending a psftp -b batch script with it would cause PSFTP as a whole to believe it had failed, even if everything worked fine
- certificate handling would do the wrong thing, for RSA keys only, if you specified a detached certificate to go with a PPK file that had a different certificate embedded
- Windows Pageant's option to write out a configuration file fragment for Windows OpenSSH now works even if you have a space in your user name
- in local-line-editing mode, pressing ^U now just clears the line, instead of clearing it and then inserting a literal ^U
- Several bug fixes in edge cases of terminal wrapping, involving double-width characters

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