What happened to macmillan website?
in [VbScript]
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From: MikeB on 30 Apr 2010 15:25 I got hold of a scripting book "Windows 2000 Windows Script Host" by Tim Hill. This was on the recommendation of someone as a very good starter in scripting. This book says that the samples can be downloaded from the website macmillantech.com, but that website seems defunct now. :( Is it possible that they went out of business? Does anyone here know if the website has moved, or perhaps even as a desperate grasp, does anyone here perhaps have a copy of the samples accompanying this book? I'd try contacting the author, but it seems he has not published anything since this book (if I read amazon.com correctly) and hence he may not be around either. Bummer. I have other scripting books, but I keep getting confused about the differences in WSH and VBscript and what objects belong where and so forth. I was hoping that going back to the inception of WSH might help me. And then, there is also Windows power shell. :( But that is another kettle of fish.
From: Mayayana on 30 Apr 2010 19:16 I just looked around myself and only found dead links. It appears that many of the tech. publishers have been sold multiple times. You should be able to find samples for just about anything online, though. As interpreted script code, VBS requires some kind of host interpreter. That can be WSH, or IE in webpage script, or ASP on Windows servers, etc. The WSH is the "engine" that parses and runs VBScript on Windows. It has some objects associated with it. In particular, there are the objects coming from scrrun.dll and wshom.ocx: FileSystemObject, WScript.Shell, etc. But those objects are just somewhat of a willy nilly collection of things that the original designers thought might be needed by people using WSH. There are no VBScript objects per se, but VBS can use any COM object with a dispatch interface. The objects that come with WSH are sort of a "starter kit" that can be depended upon to exist on most machines. Then there are other common objects like IE, Shell.Application, WMI, WindowsInstaller, etc. Those are not part of WSH but they're available on almost all machines. So it's not unusual to see those objects discussed here. There are also lots of 3rd-party objects. And if you're doing WinNT admin. there are lots of commandline EXEs that have nothing to do with VBS or WSH, but which are nevertheless available and commonly used. > I was hoping that going back to the inception of WSH > might help me. In a nutshell.... there was Netscape using Javascript, and Unix people had shell scripting for server management. On Windows there was only left-over DOS for automation scripting. Then Microsoft came out with Internet Explorer to compete with Netscape. They provided IE with 2 optional scripting languages: VBS and JS. If you look at older VBS books you'll see that they only deal with the IE DOM. Circa 1996 VBS was expected to become a second web scripting language. There was no WSH. Fast forward a couple of years, to about 1998. Windows admins were asking for something GUI-based to replace the outdated command line of DOS .BAT scripts. Microsoft created the WSH functionality with one simple change: the ability to instantiate COM objects using CreateObject (vbs) or ActiveXObject (js). They also created ActiveX controls, which are basically COM libraries. With ActiveX controls and pre-installation of IE in Windows, Microsoft was able to defeat Netscape, while at the same time digging IE's grave. IE was never again safe to use online. But it was extremely flexible due to the power of ActiveX controls. On Windows MS came up with the WSH to satisfy the call for GUI scripting. At the time I think that MS didn't think very much was needed. They came out with very limited functionality in FileSystemObject and WSCript.Shell, built the WSH, and shipped the new GUI shell scripting system. In the 12 or so years since then there has been very little update to WSH. FSO still can't even handle binary files without jumping through hoops. But since VBS can use COM objects, which are basic to the Windows OS, there's almost no limit to what can be done with VBS. That's why it's so hard to get a handle on what's available. You can use VBS to access WMI, but WMI is not part of WSH. You can automate Windows Installer, but that's not part of WSH, either. People often ask what objects are available, but it just isn't a defined set of objects. You can see a good example of that with the WSH help. It doesn't list Shell.Application. Most people think of Shell.App as part of WSH, but it's actually just a scriptable interface to the Shell API that handles Explorer folder views. It comes from shdoc401.dll on pre-XP systems, and shell32.dll on XP+. It's built in, basic GUI APIs. The fact that script can use it is probably an accident, left over from Active Desktop. With Active Desktop, pre-XP, folder windows were actually webpages. Microsoft wrote a scriptable interface for the folder view functionality so that it could be used in that webpage, folder.htt. With XP they maintained compatibility. So the Shell.App Windows collection still returns a set of open IE and Explorer windows, as InternetExplorer objects! Yet in XP there is no connection at all between IE and Explorer. Sorry to go on so long. I hope this isn't too confusing. I think what it boils down to is that much of what happens in Windows is a combination of impulse, marketing gimmicks, new technology, and fashion. The WSH is a very good example of all those things put together, in no particular order. (Likewise, PowerShell owes it's existence to the competition with Linux/Unix servers, combined with a fashion resurgence in terms of command line. Now that everyone has snazzy 3-D GUIs, a black console screen and typed commands has become a rugged, back-to-nature craze. :)
From: MikeB on 1 May 2010 03:16 On Apr 30, 6:16 pm, "Mayayana" <mayay...(a)invalid.nospam> wrote: > I just looked around myself and only found dead > links. It appears that many of the tech. publishers > have been sold multiple times. > ... wow, thanks. That was interesting. Not great from an "invest in learning this technology" pov, but interesting nonetheless.
From: Mayayana on 1 May 2010 09:51 > ... wow, thanks. That was interesting. Not great from an "invest in learning this technology" pov, but interesting nonetheless. :) Microsoft has been sort of "deprecating" VBS more recently. They're targetting PowerShell at corporate admins and generally discouraging anything else. Even with programming, MS is pushing "managed" code with .Net, discouraging people from using the API. So I guess in that sense, too, VBS is not a promising tool. On the other hand, I doubt that MS will break VBS and WSH anytime soon. There are problems with increasing restrictions like Windows File Protection, code signing, IE security, permissions issues, etc., but not with general support. WSH is still there in Win7. I use VBS a lot because it's *so* flexible for writing little utilities that would take much more work if written as native executables. Just last week I wrote a script to unpack HXS help files (with the help of 7-Zip), build an index, and display it all in an HTA-based viewer. While MS keeps replacing one thing with another, they rarely actually break things in a big way. I still use VB, for instance. MS hasn't officially supported VB for a long time. But what MS supports is largely irrelevant. VB is arguably the most supported tool available to this day, in the sense that VB software runs on virtually every Windows machine in the world without installing any support files. While Microsoft's newest .Net requires a 300+MB runtime. If I haven't scared you off, and you're still looking for books, you might check the Dino Esposito books. I always find his writing pithy and concise. He's also written a number of interesting articles for MSDN magazine over the years, many of which can probably still be found online.
From: Richard Mueller [MVP] on 1 May 2010 13:10
"MikeB" <mpbrede(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:1aab0c35-d5f7-49a8-8e44-b07ac3e3872b(a)o11g2000yqj.googlegroups.com... >I got hold of a scripting book "Windows 2000 Windows Script Host" by > Tim Hill. > > This was on the recommendation of someone as a very good starter in > scripting. > > This book says that the samples can be downloaded from the website > macmillantech.com, but that website seems defunct now. :( Is it > possible that they went out of business? Does anyone here know if the > website has moved, or perhaps even as a desperate grasp, does anyone > here perhaps have a copy of the samples accompanying this book? > > I'd try contacting the author, but it seems he has not published > anything since this book (if I read amazon.com correctly) and hence he > may not be around either. Bummer. > > I have other scripting books, but I keep getting confused about the > differences in WSH and VBscript and what objects belong where and so > forth. I was hoping that going back to the inception of WSH might help > me. > > And then, there is also Windows power shell. :( But that is another > kettle of fish. I would just add that I still use Tim Hill's "Windows 2000 Windows Script Host". If you have the book, there is little need for the online code. Another good book, especially if you write scripts to query or administer AD, is "Microsoft Windows 2000 Scripting Guide - Automating System Administration". I have the book, but fortunately the text is still available online at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee221103.aspx -- Richard Mueller MVP Directory Services Hilltop Lab - http://www.rlmueller.net -- |