I first became interested in leaning about Microsoft’s Visual Basic Scripting or VBS scripts when I was programming in Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) 6.0 the last offering of the product by Microsoft in the late 1990’s.
I was particularly interested in the fact that VBS scripts were not as time consuming to create and did not rely on the VB runtime libraries being present on the host and target machines to operate as expected. My mentor was Jason Scheffelmaer (http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jscheffelmaer) who joined me as an SMS administrator when our company went global with sites in England and throughout Europe in the early 2000’s. I was amazed at how quickly Jason could create VBS scripts to perform the same functions as my Visual Basic scripts and I was hooked on VBS scripts. Being the Lazy admin as I am do you blame me?
VBS Script was developed by the folks at Microsoft as the scripting language for Active Server Pages (ASP) but was soon adapted for basic Windows scripting on the client side for web page scripting. VBS scripting has a lot in common with VB in particular the syntax which made my transition from VB to VBS easy to do. However as noted above VBS scripts do not rely on VB runtime libraries it relies on the Windows Script Host (WSH) included in most Operating Systems or as a download from Microsoft. In Windows scripting VBS Scripting is used today primarily to access Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Namespace classes such as the Win32_Operatingsystem or the Win32_Services classes.
If you do not have a Jason at your disposal to teach you the fundamentals and the basics of VBS scripting Microsoft has provided you with learning resources as well as downloadable VBS Script collections to get you started listed below.
The myITforum web page is also a great place to find VBS scripts in the Scripting Articles section and to find solutions to your VBS problems or to ask for answers to your VBS scripting questions in the VB Script forum. The myITforum columnist Rod Trent, Ron Crumbaker and Dan Thomson also provide you with a downloadable Microsoft Access database called the myITforum Code Repository where you can find VBS as well as other scripting language scripts gathered from myITforum in once convent location.
I encourage you to read and download the Microsoft supplied documentation as well as visit the VBS scripting resources at myITforum and become a VBS scripter or sharpen you existing skills and maybe even pick up a few ideas for scripts of your own. If you have a VBS script that you want to share with others please post them to the following http://www.myitforum.com/downloads/upload.asp for the benefit of others.
Microsoft Learning Resources
Microsoft Windows 2000 Scripting Guide (On Line Version of the Book)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/guide/default.mspx?mfr=true
Downloadable Sesame Script Archive (Sesame Script 2005-2007)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FF973FBE-9382-4E4C-80DE-E7DE14FD83E6&displaylang=en
VBScript Quick Reference Download (Microsoft Word Document)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9C80B0DF-B9B4-4FCB-B513-02F8F40049E8&displaylang=en
Downloadable Microsoft VBS Script Collections
The Hey, Scripting Guy! Archive (Volume 1 August 2004 - June 2006)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5f5e0bda-923a-4744-8289-afb73f6a5ed8&displaylang=en
TechNet Script Center Sample Scripts (Portable Script Center)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b4cb2678-dafb-4e30-b2da-b8814fe2da5a&DisplayLang=en
myITforum Resources
Scripting Articles
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/11/section.asp
VB Script Forum
http://www.myitforum.com/forums/VB_Script/forumid_7/tt.htm
myITforum Code Repository
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/2/view.asp?id=6298
No Comments