Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide (Paperback)

~ Microsoft Corporation (Author) "This is a book about scripting for system administrators..." (more)
Key Phrases: Active Directory, Scripting Steps Listing, Internet Explorer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Written by the Microsoft experts who know Windows 2000 scripting technologies best, this authoritative guide delivers the detailed information and examples that IT professionals need to automate system administration tasks and maximize their productivity.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1328 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (January 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735618674
• ISBN-13: 978-0735618671
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #53,596 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate WSH book for System Administrators, January 16, 2003

By	Alex Angelopoulos (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews

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.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource and reference, May 27, 2004

By	Carlos Santiago (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the faint of heart!, February 1, 2003

By A Customer

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.