When logging in with SSH the default shell on these platforms is some vmware specific menu based system. In order to get a real shell you need to type shell. But this is not possible when using sftp, therefore you need to tell your tool to use a real shell.

In WinSCP this is done by configuring the advanced connection parameters for the sftp protocol connection. Press the advanced button and head for the sftp paragraph. In here you need to specify the sftp-server as your shell in the SFTP server text box.
The sftp-server path may change depending on specific version, find the path on your system by running: “find / -name sftp-server”.

On my system the sftp-server was in /usr/libexec/sftp-server. Therefore i had to specify “shell /usr/libexec/sftp-server” as the SFTP-server.