Microsoft® Windows® Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other) [Paperback]

Ed Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0735619816 | ISBN-13: 978-0735619814

Automate everyday administrative tasks—and take greater control of your Windows networks—with this hands-on guide to scripting. Your instructor, a Microsoft Certified Trainer with more than a decade of enterprise consulting experience, expertly builds your scripting expertise with labs and lessons you complete at your own pace. From writing your first scripts from scratch with Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) and Windows Script Host (WSH)—to exploring the programmatic advantages of using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and Active Directory Service Interface (ADSI)—you’ll learn timesaving ways to set up, deploy, and manage your Windows-based systems.

Teach yourself how to write and run scripts to:

• Automate folder and file management—including performing multiple functions-within a single script
• Configure network components using WMI
• Perform global—or select—changes to users and groups in Active Directory directory service using ADSI
• Design logon scripts that increase system manageability and configurability
• Monitor and manage printers
• Edit the registry—avoiding common pitfalls
• Track and respond to critical events
• Simplify user management for Microsoft Exchange Server
• Streamline IIS website administration—including creating consistent security configurations

PLUS—Get 100+ script samples on CD you can use or customize to help simplify the management of your system resources

Get 100+ sample scripts plus an eBook inside.

CD features:

• More than 100 sample scripts to adapt for your own work
• Timesaving scripting tools—including Script-o-Matic 1.0 and an evaluation version of PrimalScript
• Fully searchable electronic version of the book

A Note Regarding the CD or DVD

The print version of this book ships with a CD or DVD. For those customers purchasing one of the digital formats in which this book is available, we are pleased to offer the CD/DVD content as a free download via O'Reilly Media's Digital Distribution services. To download this content, please visit O'Reilly's web site, search for the title of this book to find its catalog page, and click on the link below the cover image (Examples, Companion Content, or Practice Files). Note that while we provide as much of the media content as we are able via free download, we are sometimes limited by licensing restrictions. Please direct any questions or concerns to [e-mail].

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ed Wilson is a Microsoft technical account manager in the Premier Support for Developers group at Microsoft. Prior to joining Microsoft, Ed was a senior consultant with a solutions provider partner in Cincinnati. He is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer and has taught numerous networking and administration classes.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (May 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735619816
• ISBN-13: 978-0735619814
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #214,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ed Wilson, MCSE, MSCBA, MCT is the Microsoft Scripting Guy. As such, he writes the popular Hey Scripting Guy blog for Microsoft, speaks at conferences such as TechEd and TechReady. He is very active in the community and has spoken to numerous user groups around the world via Live Meeting and in person. Ed has written numerous books about VBScript, WMI, and Windows PowerShell scripting and his latest release is Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices. In addition he wrote all the scripts for the Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 Resource kits. Ed lives in York, South Carolina and Ed has been with Microsoft since 2001. Prior to becoming the writer of the Hey Scripting Guy blog Ed taught scripting workshops worldwide to Microsoft Premier customers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Another VBScript book that is Lacking, November 28, 2004

By 

RPJ (NY, NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Microsoft® Windows® Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other) (Paperback)

How many VBScript books have you picked up that completely skip explaining the Windows Script Host and VBScript environment? They immediately jump into having you write scripts without even explaining the scripting environment, something that is Crucial to learning VBScript. This is another of those books.

This book has no information on the WSH (Windows Script Host), objects or methods, when and why to use the various WSH objects and methods, and there is only haphazard information on syntax. You can't even find this information in the appendices.

The author takes you through writing VBScripts, almost from page one, and only gives the briefest of explanations of what you are doing. For example, in the second chapter of the book, you are presented with a multiline script that includes the following:

Set objWMIService=SetObject("winmgmts") _

& .ExecQuery _

("SELECT = FROM Win32_Process")

If you never worked with Windows Script Host or VBScript, would you have any idea what this is? Or why you are using it? The author gives a 2 sentence explanation, and then jumps right into something else.

If you are new to VBScript, and are looking for a book to teach you about VBScript and WSH, this book is not for you. If you are an experienced VBScript writer, you might find some tidbit of useful information in this book. This book, sadly, does not teach you VBScript, and would be of no real use to someone who already knows VBscript.

Don't buy it.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not even if they gave it away, July 30, 2005

By 

Jase T. Wolfe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft® Windows® Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other) (Paperback)

I struggled with how to start this review. How do you describe a book that attempts to teach scripting to (and I quote) networking consultants, network administrators, MCSEs or anyone familiar with "basic Windows Server administration" yet spends time telling you how to use Notepad to open a script file? How about making up your own name for script sections that no one in the industry will understand if you ever say it to them ("Worker information section" for example)? Worse yet, a book that attempts to teach you the basics of the language by using external COM object references from the very first script instead of solidifying the base language with the base language first?

After reading dozens of self-paced learning guides on scripting as well as designing and teaching my own course work on the subject, I have a good idea what will make someone new to a topic frustrated and confused. As an example, demonstrating a script on page 5 that reads from the registry using an external COM object followed by a long table on page 13 that lists registry locations where readers can pull such information as the Exchange 2000 domain user, but NEVER formally covering the object used to read from and write to the registry - is a great way to aggravate and alienate a student.

What readers new to VBScript and Windows scripting will never find in this book is a straightforward introduction to the language, coverage of the Windows Script Host (WSH) itself, or a good reference for the native objects commonly used for Windows scripting. A dedicated reader may find that the book does introduce them to scripting, but most will find that they will need to purchase a second book to fill in the missing pieces and/or to use as a language reference later on. The author obviously knows the topic, but fails to efficiently convey that information to his readers.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely room for improvement, February 12, 2005

By 

digitalshadow (dark side of the moon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft® Windows® Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other) (Paperback)

First off, let me say that I am an absolute beginner when it comes to writing scripts for the Microsoft Windows platform, but not a beginner to writing scripts for other platforms, such as Unix and Linux. I purchased this book because it advertised on the back cover that I could "learn how to automate Windows administration with practical, hands-on instruction from a Microsoft scripting expert." I briefly glanced through the book while at the bookstore and liked the author's approach to presenting a topic at the beginning of a chapter and then supplying "hands-on" lab exercises at the end of the chapter. That's the good. Now for the bad.

The book does not provide enough background information on a lot of topics, which means you'll need to get a second source for reference information. Some of the topics are not covered as thoroughly as they should have been. Two examples readily come to mind. The first is the Select..Case control structure. While the author does introduce you to the Select..Case control structure and gives an example, he totally neglects to explain how you would specify a default case that would be executed in the event none of the other cases matched. A more frustrating example is simply how to exit a script unconditionally. Sounds trivial, I know. Yet, experience has taught me there are times when it useful to abort a script unconditionally. For example, if you are automating the installation of an application and have placed code in the script to determine whether or not there is sufficient disk space available to perform the installation. If the code determines there is insuffucient disk space, then it might be appropriate to abort script execution. I could not find an example in the book that demonstrated how to do this.

In summary, other than the aforementioned issues, I did learn enough from the book to get started writing scripts for Windows. Additional information to fill in the gaps was obtained primarily from the devguru.com website, which I would recommend as a great reference on VBScript and WSH.