Working with Objects

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide

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VBScript allows system administrators to create complex scripts using such advanced programming capabilities as branching, looping, error handling, and the calling of functions and subroutines. It does not, however, include intrinsic methods for performing system administration tasks. VBScript has built-in functions for determining the square root of a number or the ASCII value of a character, but no built-in methods for stopping services, retrieving events from event logs, or carrying out other tasks of interest to system administrators.

Fortunately, there are other ways to programmatically perform these tasks, primarily through the use of Automation objects. Automation objects are a subset of COM (Component Object Model), a standard way for applications (.exe files) or programming libraries (.dll files) to present their functionality as a series of objects. In turn, programmers (or script writers) can use these objects, and the functionality of the application or programming library, in their own projects. For example, a word processing application might expose its spell checker as an Automation object, thus providing a way for script writers to add spell checking to their projects.

The ability to work with Automation objects and to utilize the properties and methods of these objects makes VBScript a powerful tool for system administration. Admittedly, VBScript alone cannot read events from an event log; however, VBScript can use the functionality included within WMI to retrieve such events. VBScript has no intrinsic methods for creating user accounts; however, the language can use the functionality in ADSI to create such accounts. In fact, VBScript is often referred to as a glue language because one of its primary uses is to "glue" objects together. Rather than provide a seemingly infinite number of intrinsic functions devoted to system administration, VBScript instead provides a framework for using the methods and properties of Automation objects designed to carry out these tasks.

For example, the script in Listing 2.2 illustrates the importance of Automation objects within VBScript. This script reports the amount of free disk on drive C of the local computer. Furthermore, it does this using very little VBScript code. Instead, the script:

1. Connects to WMI (an Automation object) by using the VBScript GetObject method.
2. Uses the WMI Get method to retrieve information about drive C.
3. Uses the WSH Echo method to report the amount of free disk space on drive C.

As noted, there is very little VBScript code here. Instead, the primary purpose of VBScript in this example is to glue together the functionality of WMI and WSH.

Listing 2.2   Using Objects in VBScript

1 2 3 

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:") Set objLogicalDisk = objWMIService.Get("Win32_LogicalDisk.DeviceID='c:'") Wscript.Echo objLogicalDisk.FreeSpace

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