Inserting a control character in vi(m) on Linux is a simple case of pressing Ctrl+V and then pressing your control character. Windows insists on pasting with a Ctrl+V, so you do the following:

test

You can use the xclip utility to manipulate the X clipboard from the commandline or from a script. This command will overwrite the current X clipboard selection with the contents of /etc/passwd so a subsequent paste will contain the text of the file:

$ xclip < /etc/passwd

Download source from http://people.debian.org/~kims/xclip/.