you can use putty from command prompt too. Just place it somewhere within your $PATH environment (eg., inside winnt folder), and then from command prompt, type
putty -2 -ssh -l <username> <host>
the "-2" tells putty to use SSH mode 2 only, "-ssh" tells it to use ssh instead of regular telnet (which has been changed recently, in the good old days putty defaulted to telnet
), and "-l" tells the next parameter to be username. You can entirely skip -l <username>, no problem, then the username will be prompted right after a connection is established.
hope this helps.
all the best.