Scripting & the Windows Scripting Host

The Windows Scripting Host has been the darling of Windows Administrators since Microsoft released it for Windows NT. It opened up all the power that we had been looking for and that was missing (and oh, how the Unix admins liked to remind us) from Windows shell scripts.  The ability to run many scripting languages (even Pearl for our Unix admins), even within the same job, made it very powerful.  It even has access to the Component Object Model meaning with a little help from compiled languages there was nothing we couldn't do.

I have produced many scripts for things as simple as logon scripts to map drives & printers, to much more complex scripts containing classes - just like "real" languages.   Surprisingly, the execution times of scripts is not as bad as one might think. Given that all variables are treated as variants it is quite competitive.

Scripting really is a good choice for those day to day admin tasks, for logon scripts, startup scripts etc.  It is robust & reliable...and it runs on any Windows box - no framework install required!