Controlling Windows Servers remotely is a daily activity of a network and system administrators, whether with command line or remote desktop. Here I’m using Telnet command Line tool. Telnet is a protocol that enables you to connect remotely to computers. By default the telnet services is not enabled on Windows Server and Clients. I’m going to show you how to enable telnet in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2 or vNext Server. So you need to know the telnet port also. The default port of telnet is 23 and when you enable telnet on Windows, you make sure that the port 23 is not blocked by Windows Firewall or Anti Virus. 

Telnet is not a good chose to control a system over the internet. Because it is not secure and the communication is occurred on a non encrypted mode. If you want to secure Telnet communications, you must do it with Internet security protocol (IPSec). Securing telnet is out of scope of this topic, we simply enable telnet in Windows 10 client and Windows Servers. It work the same on Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, 8 and Windows 8.1.

Enable Telnet In Windows 10 Client Side

Firstly, we must enable telnet in Windows 10 and next on Windows Server. To work perfectly, telnet client must installed on client side and telnet Server must be installed on Server side. In order to enable telnet, go to control panel -> Programs and Features -> and click Turn Windows Features on or off.

For an expert it is a very long way, so just type “optionalfeatures” on the Run and press enter to open Windows Features page.

On the Windows Features page, tick the Telnet Client and click on to install it. It take a minute and when the installation complete successfully, close the page. That is it, Telnet installed successfully on Windows 10.

Enable Telnet on Windows Server 2012 R2

OK the next step is enabling telnet on Windows Server. No matter which server you are using. In Server side it is not enabled like Windows client, you must enabled trough Server Manager. Becuase it is Feature base and all are controlling with Server Manager console.

On the Server Manager‘s of Windows Server, click Manage and then click Add Roles and Features.

On the Installation Type page select Role-based or feature-base installation and click Next.

Select the Server you want to install telnet on the destination Server page. In this test environment, we have only one server and by default it has been selected. Don? So click Next.

On the Server Role page, do nothing and just click Next. So we want to install features not Roles. And I don’t take Screenshot, it is going to make heavy my article.

So on the Windows Feature tick both Telnet Server and Telnet Client then click Next to install it and go to Confirmation page.  On the Confirmation page click Next and it takes a few minutes, so be patient.

Finally, when the installation finished successfully, click Close and go to enable Telnet service from Services. To open Services on Windows Server, search for Services to find it.

On the Services page find Telnet and click twice to open telnet properties. Now select Automatic and click Start button then click OK and close the services console.

 Test Telnet Services on Windows

Try to test the telnet whether it work or not. In order to test telnet, go to Windows 10 and open command prompt or PowerShell. and type the following command.

Telnet 192.168.100.2

It is the IP Address of Server that I want to control it with Telnet.

So when you press enter, the system ask you about sending password to a remote computer trough internet.

This is about sending your user name and password trough a non secure internet line which I told you about securing telnet with IPsec. So type “Y” and press enter.

Type user name and password correctly and press enter.

Welcome to the telnet session from Windows 10 to Windows Server 2012 R2 that work perfectly. Now the Server 2012 R2 is completely under your control. Test and run some command for test.

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