I need a windows program that will remotely login via sftp and download files automatically at set intervals throughout the day. I imagine there are more than a few. Any experience with any of them?
I use WinSCP (which also support sftp) when I want a GUI tool. It has a nice GUI ftp-ish interface. You may want to consider pscp (from the Putty website). It is a command-line scp client that will allow you to use a private key file for authentication so you can stick it in a Windows .bat file and schedule it to run automatically. The private key will keep you from having to type in the password as it runs or keeping your password in a plain-text file. It also supports sftp.
dunno about the set interval thing, but winscp does certainly do sftp. could I ask why sftp ? or was you just being letter happy with your abbreviations ? also do you mean sftp or shell ? I could write you a command line program to run as a scheduled task if it suits ....
Well, for starters, this is for windows. Secondly, sftp, meaning secure ftp, so there is a value to that. As why people still use ftp for their data, I don't know but sftp is how we transfer confidential data. To me, using ftp verses sftp would be like telnet verses ssh.