Customer Reviews

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I won't claim this is the only scripting book you should ever buy. I WILL claim that it is the WSH "missing manual" for system administrators. The short story is that it provides comprehensive, in-depth coverage of WSH admin scripting with excellent code examples, and as such is a rare combination of instructional use and long-term reference value. Personally, I haven't thought a book on WSH in the last three years was worth buying; this is the one I've been waiting for.

As a comprehensive reference, this book stands alone. System administrators have been historically short-changed when it comes to scripting books; most written for Windows tend to be generically focused on languages rather than on the details of WSH, and usually cover only a handful of the technologies. This one is written by scripters who appear to use it every day, and they cover the breadth of topics: interactions with everything from system logs to ADSI to WMI. Although the code is almost entirely in VBScript, the focus is on application, not language tricks. If you want to any other Active Scripting language as your host, the code is plain vanilla enough to be easily translated.

In providing depth, the authors had some special advantages and they used them to the hilt. It was written by Microsoft insiders who know the internals of the technologies such as COM, ADSI, and WMI which well-rounded scripting uses. When covering the range of topics for admin scripters, the authors pushed explaining the why and how in unequaled detail, and made liberal use of charts for explaining difficult concepts where appropriate.

Coding quality is a critical factor as far as I am concerned in any book about programming or scripting; after all, good code is the test of a good coder, and in a book on scripting it shows that the author knows more than just the layout of a few random object models. Even judged on this alone, Microsoft's "Windows 2000 Scripting Guide" sparkles. Most topical scripting books have appalling code style; not this one. Code is explained carefully, and with few exceptions is written in the form of well-wrapped procedures which can be dropped into your own scripts and used as-is - variables are declared, input/output is separated from calculations, and most importantly, the procedures appear to be written with the explicit goal of making purpose and technique clear for the reader.

There are very few books out there which do an enduring job of teaching a concept, showing useful code, and providing critical reference material. This book does all three; if you get it, it will be your main WSH scripting sourcebook for years to come.

Windows 2000 automation goes beyond simple and limited BAT/CMD scripts. For total control of Windows you should definitely learn scripting. Although it has an intimidating look (1300+ pages) this book is actually a fast track resource for learning and putting scripts to work immediately. The included CD has an electronic version of the book (not PDF, but in MS Help file format); it also has a separate link with all the scripts organized by tasks for you to copy and paste on your favorite text editor.

My interest was focused on Services, I had an urgent need on my project to automate services to start and stop at specific times during the week. I went directly to Chapter 15 on Services and then back to Chapters 2,3 for VBS and WSH reference. In less than a day I was able to resolve my issue using a combination of scripting and Windows Scheduled Tasks. These scripts saved me from having to come in very early to work (before users came in) to restart services that were being shut down during the daily system maintenance window. Manually restarting the services took me around 40 minutes every morning, so this is also a notable consideration.

My only criticism, in the hopes that a future edition would improve an already excellent book:
The author explains that this book was not intended to be read in sequence and you may just get directly to the area of interest, but if you are an experienced administrator without scripting experience you have to get all the way to chapter 3 to find out how to run a script. There should have been an introductory section on this subject since there are many working scripts already available on the CD for administrators to use.

I recommend this book to any system administrator who wants to ease their daily work load.

This book is massive!

I will hand it to the reader from Indy that there are some typos, but every book I have seen that contains code has typos. Usually, this is attributed to the fact that the person(s) who edit the book, don't understand the material. Most coders are not good editors, and most editors are not good coders.

Putting that aside, I found this book to be an extremely valuable REFERENCE. I put that in caps because if you try to read it from cover to cover, you will wind up in a mental facility making little wicker baskets. That's probably what happened to the editors. ;)

In addition to typos, these books frequently suffer from very bad indexes. The accompanying CD compensates for this shortcoming by providing a fully searchable electronic version of the book.

This book is a must-have, but it is not the scripting book to start with. If you are just starting, get Stanek's Windows 2000 Scripting Bible.

Ever go through a good technical book - usually about 2-5X the size of your average pulp fiction bestseller - and feel this is one of the best investments you've ever made? The kind you just can't read enough of? If not, read this book.

Mature sysadmins need to know scripting. For Windows/AD admins, there's probably no better way to get started with scripting than this book. Every time I saw this book at bookstores, I couldn't help but think most of this stuff is on Microsoft web site.

What a mistake! Though most of the info may be available online, the organization of this book, the writing style and approach of the authors, the example scripts, and the accompanying CD with all scripts in the book along with an electronic version - all this make one perfect package to get started with scripting.

The book covers VBScript, WSH, Scripting Runtime, ADSI & WMI, and takes a reader through the task of creating scripts to automate everyday sysadmin functions.

What's particularly impressive is the fact that the author(s) present each script example - or rather a 'scriptlet' - as a way of accomplishing one particular task (or 'sub-task'). This keeps each example very simple and easy to understand, and you quickly learn to put together the different 'scriptlets' (and what you've learnt) to automate more complex functions.

Chapter 17: Writing Enterprise Scripts is a very well-written tutorial on accomplishing tasks like accepting input from text files, redirecting output to web pages, sending email notifications, et al.

This book (and the electronic version) has quickly become something I refer to practically every day.

Bharat Suneja
MCT

I first want to clear this up: this is not a VB book. It just uses VB in the script samples and has one chapter (off the total 18) about VB. You can easily rewrite the scripts in Java Script or whatever COM enabled script language fancies you.

This book is all about automating Windows administration. It touches all aspects of Win administration. Off course it can not do an in-depth writing about Active Directory, MOM or WMI. But you can find that elsewhere (though not many books are out there). This book gives you enough stuff to get the job done. If you want to understand how all this work you'll have to read a lot of books, from Windows Internals to COM, AD, WMI, etc. And let's face it, when you have to get the job done now, you do not care too much how exactly it work under the hood.

I had no scripting knowledge before picking up this book. I quickly got up to speed and I'm able to develop a management solution using Windows 2003 and Advanced Deployment Services.

If you administer or if you are a consultant or develop solution for system management, no matter the size of your enterprise, this book has the knowledge that you must have.

Note that this book is not a WMI scripting book. Although it uses a lot of WMI scripts it is not an in-depth WMI book. But you can relax - it will get you to quickly write simple WMI scripts.

About VB Script used in this book: I didn't know any VB when I start reading coming from a C/C++/C# background. In two weeks I had no problem with VB Script (this asumes that you already have programing experience!). If you can not "touch" VB then go ahead and use Java Script instead. The book will still apply only that you will have to rewrite the scripts for JS - no big deal in my view.

I highly recommend this book.

I have bought several books on scripting..perl, C++, vbscript..you name it. None of them have ever prompted me to write a review before. This MS Press book has everything you need to script for Windows. Other books were just references. This one is not only a fantastic reference, but teaches you as well. One of my first scripts was to change the way Outlook 2002 & 2003 block attachments. The script was only 3 lines long. Easy as pie! The scripts on CD alone are worth the price of the book.
If you are new to scripting and work in a windows environment, GET THIS BOOK! You can get up and going with little experience.
If you are not new at Windows scripting, its a great reference.
Best book in my collection!!

This book rates a '5' for me due to the abundance of _usable_ scripting examples. Most scripting books I've read (and I own _several_) have completely useless examples of things no system administrator would find necessary to accomplish (Hello World ad nauseam). My job often requires that I write VBScripts and I always reference this book when trying to determine a solution. As a matter of fact, the CD version gets launched immediately after my scripting editor when I'm coding.

These guys _know_ scripting and it shows in the primers and explanations of the code. It's been very helpful to have the 'plain English' step-throughs provided with each coding sample. It's not unusual for me to find the exact snippet of code I need and just copy and paste it into my own scripts. That's a real time saver!

Their use of Hungarian notation as a variable naming convention helps keep the code easy to read, debug and professional looking. When I've passed scripts on to 'real' developers, they often express their appreciation for that. (I've scripted enterprise solutions taken from the book that had stumped our developers).

The WMI scripting tool, Scriptomatic (and the downloadable EZADScriptomatic for ADSI scripting...) are real time-savers as well. I've found them very helpful in learning the capabilities of the technologies.

To reiterate: the Scripting Guys _ROCK_!

This is an incredible tool. Any administrator wishing to do anything from basic scripting to complex Active Directory or remote computer control needs to pick up this book. For those starting out in administrative scripting, this title offers plain English and easy to understand primers in VBScript and the WSH. For administrators already familiar with the core language, the primers section continues with ADSI and WMI - both written so well as to completely demystify the process. After the primers, a vast amount of information is given on scripting standard production environment tasks, making this title useful regardless of your need for the primers.

The true wealth of this title is the ability to get more information out of it than is printed. Besides the abundance of script snippets which are easily used in any production environment, is the printed links to outside information and utilities on Microsoft's web site, as well as the CD-ROM which contains not only an on-line form of the book but many additional tools for generating scripts. As a point of interest, the on-line version of this book is completely free and on Microsoft's web site as well. Search for the title on their site to find it.

Certainly not the last purchase you will make for WMI and ADSI scripting. I've found inconsistencies between Microsoft's information and information published by others (usually resolved by the third parties information), which made me glad I had the other titles. All in all - the title is a must for all system administrators.

I'm not the sharpest tack in the box but I do know how to read and am able to comprehend the material at hand. I have attempted to read three other publications dealing with VBScripting and WSH only to loose interest because something was missing. It was the rest of the story! Within the first twenty-five pages of this book the veil was lifted and the sun shown bright! This is a must have publication for anyone desiring to learn and use VBScripting for network administration.

This book will work for even a novice, who knows nothing of scripting. That is perhaps why the book is so thick, as it is chalk full of valuable explanations. I find the material and organization to be very excellent. For the more advanced users, those with perhaps UNIX scripting, perl, development, etc. background, they can quickly skim through introductory material and get on to the more advanced topics, such as ADSI and WMI.

This book has real world practical and immediately useful material for WSH, ADSI, and WMI. The WSH does have a lot of coverage on the Internet and published books, but for trickier technologies like WMI and ADSI, I find this book's well written explanations and overall coverage most invaluable. I liked for instance that in Active Directory coverage using ADSI, there was intuitive coverage of scripting the various providers (LDAP, GC, WinNT) and coverage of using ADO to get at Active Directory info. through either LDAP or SQL queries.

Generally speaking, there are some areas of Windows where certain functionality and features are not accessible through the command-line or GUI, one can get at it through scripting with material presented in this book. There are other areas, where it can be tedious to do certain tasks through the GUI on several desktops, such as printer setup, inventory of hardware in a company, or account maintenence; I was able to automate these chores through choice tidbits found in the book.

Overall, I find this book imensely useful, especially for administrative chores. And for novices wanting to get into scripting, this is indeed THE book.