Changing the PuTTY character set for all saved sessions

Solution 1:

I just had the same problem and found PuTTY session manager:

PuTTY Session Manager is a tool that allows system administrators to organise their PuTTY sessions into folders and assign hotkeys to favourite sessions. Multiple sessions can be launched with one click. Requires MS Windows and the .NET 2.0 Runtime.

It allows you to configure specific attributes of all sessions at once while leaving the distinct elements alone.

PuTTY Session Manager has no documentation, so here are instructions (correct as of version 0.50.189.0):

1. In PuTTY, load the default settings, change the settings you need, and save it as the default again.
2. Install PuTTY session manager (if you don't already have it) and start it.
3. Right click the PuTTY Session Manager icon in the system tray, and choose "Session Editor"
4. Select all sessions and click "Copy Session" at the bottom of the window.
5. Make sure the "Choose Session Template" dropdown is set to "Default Settings", choose "Copy only selected attributes", choose the category or individual attributes you need to change, and click "OK".
6. Choose whether to save a backup of your sessions before the changes are made (highly recommended).
7. Confirm that you want the changes to be applied.

Solution 2:

Export the Putty sessions stored in the registry by exporting the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham. Then search-replace the desired settings merge the .reg file back to registry.