Telnet Service on Windows XP

For those of you who do not know what Telnet is, it is the most basic way for one computer to be logged on to another. For a bit more information on what it is I refer you to the Wikipedia article.

I had the need to use telnet on Windows XP today and was wondering what ID it uses to login by default. I'm on a corporate Windows Domain and by default Telnet is off. For security reasons, I recommend leaving it off. For the immediate need, which is to be on a remote machine without affecting the work on the remote machine by someone who is using it, I turned on the windows Telnet service.

By checking the logs on the remote machine, in Computer Management -> System Tools -> Event Viewer -> Application, I verified that Telnet is started. Checking Computer Management -> System Tools -> Shared Folders -> Sessions, it revealed that I was logged on using my Windows Domain, which authenticated automatically. Once you are authenticated, your prompt shows as if you were on your local machine's command shell. You'll need to know the Command line to move on from here. I won't go into this here. Make sure you turn the Telnet service off after you are done.

Here are the default windows telnet commands:

c - close close current connection
d - display display operating parameters
o - open hostname [port] connect to hostname (default port 23).
q - quit exit telnet
set - set set options (type 'set ?' for a list)
sen - send send strings to server
st - status print status information
u - unset unset options (type 'unset ?' for a list)
?/h - help print help information

If you are interested in learning more, leave me a comment or just do a google search. Do you still use Telnet? What do you use it for?