Files and File Objects

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide

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Files are the ultimate building blocks of any file system; neither disk drives nor folders serve much purpose unless they are used for storing files. Despite their importance, files are often considered beyond the scope of system administration; instead, in many organizations, users manage their own files. This might be a reasonable approach except that users often:

• Store files (such as files infected by viruses) that should not be on the network.
• Store large media files that serve no purpose other than using up hard disk space.
• Needlessly duplicate files and maintain those duplicates indefinitely.
• Store files that have not been accessed in years.
• Do not know how to perform file management activities such as compressing files to conserve disk space.

Because of this, it is a good idea for system administrators to keep track of the files stored within their file systems. Both WMI and the Shell object provide methods that enable you to identify a file or set of files and to return detailed information about that file (including such data as the file size and when the file was last used). In addition, both WMI and the Shell object allow you to carry out common administrative tasks such as copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files.

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