How to Enable Telnet Client in Windows 10

Telnet client allows you to connect to remote hosts over a TCP/IP connection via Telnet protocol. And you need to have the telnet client installed on your computer to use telnet. Besides third-party clients, you can also use Windows’ native Telnet client. But telnet client in Windows 10 is disabled by default. So, you will have to enable telnet client in your Windows 10 PC before you can use it.

Third-party telnet clients provide several additional features, but if you need only basic functionality, Windows native Telnet Client is the best choice for you. However, as mentioned earlier, it is disabled by default. And if you try to use the telnet command before enabling the telnet client, you get the “telnet is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file” error. So, for using the telnet client in Windows 10, you need to enable it first in Windows Features.

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Enable Telnet Client in Windows 10 from Windows Features

Let’s start the process of enabling the telnet client in Windows 10. We will be using Windows Features utility via Control Panel to enable telnet. Just follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Windows Features from Control Panel

Open Control panel from Start menu.

Search “windows features” in the Control Panel and click on “Turn Windows features on or off” from search results.

This will open the Windows features window where you can turn on or off Windows features.

Step 2: Enable Telnet Client from Windows Features

In the Windows Features window, scroll down and check the box next to Telnet Client and then click on OK. This will enable Telnet client on your Windows 10 PC.

It will take some time for Windows to apply these changes. After successfully enabling telnet client, click on Close.

Step 3: Test the Telnet Client in Windows 10

After you enable the telnet client, you should test it first. We can easily test telnet client by running telnet commands in Command prompt. To use telnet, type command in the following format CMD window and press Enter.

telnet <hostname/IP address> <port>

You can avoid providing the port number to use the default port. You can use the following address for example: “towel.blinkenlights.nl“

The above telnet server can be used for watching Star Wars in ASCII mode.

SEE ALSO: Check 10 Cool Command Prompt Tricks You should Know.

Enable and Use Telnet Client in Windows 10

The above tutorial explained how you can enable telnet client in Windows 10. The process is quite easy. You can easily enable it in Windows Features and you are good to go. Besides, native telnet client in Windows 10, Putty is also a good choice and is widely used for testing network connectivity.

You can also enable other services using the same process. In case you need to disable telnet in Windows 10, you can go to Windows Features again and disable it from there. Feel free to drop your queries and suggestions in the comment section down below.

SEE ALSO: A to Z list of Windows CMD commands (PDF Download).