Is User LocalPath other than default Path supported for authorized_keys file?

[NealWalters]

"OpenSSH for Windows" version
7.9p1 for Windows

Server OperatingSystem
((Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows nt\CurrentVersion\" -Name ProductName).ProductName)

Client OperatingSystem
Win 2012/R2

What is failing
To get public key certificate to work, we had to put it in c:\users\testuser.ssh.\authorized_keys.
However, when the user was created, we set the "Home Folder - Local Path" to e:\Integration\SFTP\TestUser.

When we put the .ssh/authorized_keysin the e:\Integratoin\SFTP\TestUser directory, we got the error: " Failed to open file:C:/Windows/.ssh/authorized_keys error:2", which seem quite misleading.

When the user sends a file, it is stored in the e:\Integration\SFTP\TestUser as desired. So the Local path seems to work for the upload/download of files, but not for the .ssh.\authorized_keys.

Expected output
If the local path for the user is defined as e:\Integration\SFTP\TestUser. then I wouldn't expect any error when putting the .ssh\authorized_keys there.

(Also posted here: https://superuser.com/questions/1534321/why-does-openssh-try-to-open-c-windows-ssh-authorized-keys-instead-of-user-dir).

[WSLUser]

Doing this is already something not done in Linux. It is intended for the user profile .ssh to be used. You can specify any path for sending and receiving files but authorized keys much be directly under C:\User\username\ .ssh\ This is by-design behavior and imo should not be changed. It is not secure to place authorized keys somewhere other than the user home folder anyways. It may be inconvenient but if there's multiple users that need that file then simply use an administrator account to copy it to each of the profiles. Your solution is to change "Home Folder - Local Path" to C:\Users\testuser.

[WSLUser]

Also update your SSH to 8.1. There are some changes that should help in regards to the authorized keys. See PowerShell/openssh-portable#409 for example.