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Install the laptop's SSH key

Run this on the 4090 — it's the thing blocking every gen job from the new laptop.

You're reading this on the 4090 — that's the point, copy straight off this page. You only ever do this once. After it, the laptop logs in with a key and the password stops mattering.

1 Open an admin terminal

Press Win + X, then click Terminal (Admin)

Older menu might say "Windows PowerShell (Admin)" — same thing. Say yes to the UAC prompt.

Check the title bar says "Administrator". If it doesn't, the next step just fails with access denied — C:\ProgramData\ssh is locked to SYSTEM and Administrators.

2 Paste this and hit enter

It's one line. If it wraps on screen that's just display — don't break it up. Folder doesn't matter, the paths are absolute.

Add-Content "$env:ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys" 'ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIL5itYrv7voNM97RyfhXEb/OVS/6w4CPZdJLHz81O/6h killa-newlaptop-4090'; icacls "$env:ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys" /inheritance:r /grant "Administrators:F" /grant "SYSTEM:F"

3 What you should see

A couple of lines from icacls finishing with:

processed file: C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys
Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files

That's it — no restart needed. sshd re-reads that file on every connection. Tell me and I'll test the key from the laptop.

4 If it goes wrong

Access denied	The terminal isn't elevated. Close it, reopen with `Win`+`X` → Terminal (Admin).
Cannot find path	`C:\ProgramData\ssh` doesn't exist, which would mean the OpenSSH server isn't installed. Tell me — that changes the fix, and it'd be odd since the box is answering on port 22.
Ran fine, key still rejected	Usually the file ended up UTF-16 or picked up a BOM from an earlier edit, which sshd silently ignores. Say the word and I'll give you a one-liner that rewrites it clean as ASCII.

Just the key, if you need it

The public half of the laptop's keypair. Safe to paste anywhere — it's public by design, the private half never leaves the laptop.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIL5itYrv7voNM97RyfhXEb/OVS/6w4CPZdJLHz81O/6h killa-newlaptop-4090

Why administrators_authorized_keys and not ~/.ssh? Windows OpenSSH ignores a user's own authorized_keys for any account in the Administrators group and reads that one central file instead. That single quirk is what's had the key bouncing all week.