PuTTY

Putty is a telnet/SSH client for Win32 Operating systems (Windows 95+). The best part about putty is that it does not require any installation, nor any other system packages, you can just download and run the exe. Putty also can handle various terminal types built in, and can store connection profiles into the registry.

Information from the homepage

PuTTY is a free implementation of SSH and Telnet for Windows and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.
It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.

The latest version is 0.80.

LEGAL WARNING: Use of PuTTY, PSCP, PSFTP and Plink is illegal in countries where encryption is outlawed. 
I believe it is legal to use PuTTY, PSCP, PSFTP and Plink in England and Wales and in many other countries, 
but I am not a lawyer and so if in doubt you should seek legal advice before downloading it. You may find useful information at cryptolaw.org, which collects information on cryptography laws in many countries, but we can't vouch for its correctness.

Use of the Telnet-only binary (PuTTYtel) is unrestricted by any cryptography laws. 

Latest news:
2023-12-18 PuTTY 0.80 is released 

Downloading

You can download the win32 i386 version directly here.
All other downloads are from the download page.

External links

• PuTTY: a free SSH and Telnet client - Original home page
• Download PuTTY - New home page