Running commands on Putty without fear of losing connection

"Here's what I have picked up about using screen (which I, too, have just started doing):

screen -S <name> creates a screen named '<name>'. This is quite useful if you want to have several screen sessions going at the same time. For instance, I have one I use normally and one I use for my persistent processes.
screen -ls lists the running screens.
screen -r <name> resumes a detached screen. If the screen is already attached somewhere, use screen -dr <name>.

Also, when you start using screen, whenever you plan to leave, press ^a d (= ctrl-a followed by a d) to detach the screen you're currently running. It can then be resumed later.

In addition, I can recommend taking a look at ^a ? for a list of the different commands you can use while inside of a screen.

The most important of these (to me) are:

^a c to create a new window in your screen session.
^a ^a to switch between the two last used windows.
^a "" to list the current windows in your session.
^a Esc to scroll in your screen buffer.
^a k to kill the current window.
^a x to lock your screen session, in case you need to leave your computer and don't want people to mess with it."

"you can also set up your environment to log you in and start screen right off the bat. There are many ways to do it. I chose to add this to my .bashrc file.

# screen management
if [ $SSH_TTY ] && [ ! $WINDOW ]; then
SCREENLIST=`screen -ls | grep 'Attached'`
if [ $? -eq ""0"" ]; then
echo -e ""Screen is already running and attached:\n ${SCREENLIST}""
else
screen -U -R
fi
fi"

"You'd be looking for

screen -x"

"Step 4 is ""screen -r""

If you got disconnected really forcefully, you might need to do ""screen -r -d"", to force it to disconnect from your old ssh session, which it thinks is still open."