WinSCP

To avoid having to use a USB stick to transfer files from your windows machine to your Raspberry Pi use WinSCP

Get WinSCP from here and install it.

When it opens setup the following:

Session

File Protocol: SCP
Host name: The IP address of you Raspberry Pi
User name: pi
Password: raspberry

Advanced > SCP /Shell

Shell: sudo su – (if you want to be able to write to protected directories, e.g. /var/ww/ to transfer files for apache web server)

That’s it, connect and you can transfer files just by dragging and dropping.

To save your setup

Menu > Session > Save Session

View Hidden Files

Options > Preferences > Panels > Show Hidden Files

Setting A File As Executable

Right click the file, properties and check the ‘X’ box for the ‘Owner’ permissions

Permissions – READ THIS!!!

If you set the user as root when using WinSCP and the copy files onto the RPi, they will be stored as owned by user root.  This means if you try and alter them logging in as the default pi user you won’t have permission to. Remember this!  Log in as root user when you need to (for instance when needing to copy html files in for apache if you’ve not setup another user with root privileges) but log in as your default pi user when copying over general files you want to be able to use on the RPI without needing to use sudo from the command line.