Console2 is a great frontend on Windows for cmd.exe and PowerShell.  It provides re-sizable windows, a tabbed interface, and transparent windows.

It can also be used with PuTTY, but it takes a little bit of work.  The issue is apparently with ANSI escape codes. Thankfully David A. Sjøen (@dasjoen) commented on Scott Hanselman’s Console2 article with the solution using ANSICON.

From the ANSICON ReadMe

ANSICON provides ANSI escape sequences for Windows console programs. It provides much the same functionality as `ANSI.SYS’ does for MS-DOS. 

Instructions

1. Download ANSICON (Github) and extract the contents from the x86 or x64 folders to your Console2 installation folder.

   I now have the following files in my C:\Program Files\Console2\ directory:

   • ANSI32.dll
   • ANSI64.dll
   • ansicon.exe
   • ANSI-LLW.exe

2. Open Console2 and create a new tab with the command line, replacing aPuttyProfileName with the name of a saved PuTTY profile:

   C:\Program Files\Console2\ansicon.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\plink.exe" -load aPuttyProfileName