What is Windows Script Host (WSH)?

WshShell Object has three properties:

• CurrentDirectory
• Environment
• SpecialFolders

WshShell Object provides eleven methods:

• AppActivate()
• CreateShortcut()
• ExpandEnvironmentStrings()
• LogEvent()
• Popup()
• Run()
• SendKeys()
• Exec()
• RegDelete()
• RegRead()
• RegWrite()

The difference between an application and  a shortcut is that the shortcut has a small curved black arrow at the lower-left corner( indicating that this is the shortcut of the application.)

WshShortcut Object provides nine properties:

• Arguments
• Description
• FullName
• Hotkey
• IconLocation
• RelativePath
• TargetPath
• WindowStyle
• WorkingDirectory

WshShortcut provides one method:

• Save()

ShortCut properties

Shortcut Properties

• Target– Provides the file name along with the fill path of the object.
• StartIn– Provides the object/application’s default working directory.
• Shortcutkey– Provides the keyboard shortcut sequence to open the shortcut
• Run– Provides details if the application will be opened in another mode. ( Normal or maximized or Minimized)
• Comment– Provides a shortcut description. It is optional though.
• IconFileName– Provides the icon to represent the shortcut.

Since shortcut is a secondary object, I order to use shortcut object, we need to create an object of the primary a parent object.

Secondly, we need to establish a relationship with the location where we want to save the shortcut.

How to Create a shortcut?

Set WHSShell=Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
MyDesktopFolder=WHSShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop")
Set myNotepadShortcut=WSHShell.CreateShortcut(MyDesktopFolder & "\\Notepad")
myNotepadShortcut.TargetPath="%windir%"\Notepad.exe"
myNotepadShortcut.Save()

How to delete a shortcut?

WSHShortcut object provides Delete() method that can be used to delete a shortcut.

Set WHSShell=Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") 
MyDesktopFolder=WHSShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop") 
Set myFSOObject=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set myNotepadShortcut=myFSOObject.GetFile(MyDesktopFolder&\\Notepad)
myNotepadShortcut.Delete()

How to Modify a shortcut?

Option Explicit
Dim WHSShell,MyDesktopFolder,myNotepadShortcut
Set WHSShell=Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") 
MyDesktopFolder=WHSShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop") 
Set myFSOObject=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set myNotepadShortcut=WSHShell.CreateShortcut(MyDesktopFolder & "\\Notepad")
myNotepadShortcut.TargetPath="%windir%"\Notepad.exe"
myNotepadShortcut.Description="My Reporting"
myNotepadShortcut.Arguments="C:\MyReporting.log"
myNotepadShortcut.Hotkey="ALT+CTRL+N"
myNotepadShortcut.Save()

How to Change the Start menu or alter Start Menu?

Set WHSShell=Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") 
MyStartFolder=WHSShell.SpecialFolders("StartMenu")
Set MyWindowShortcut=WHSShell.CreateShortcut(MyStartFolder& "\\word")
MyWindowShortcut.TargetPath="C:\Program File\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe"
MyWindowShortcut.Save()

In the similar manner, we can create shortcuts for the notepad, WinZip, paint, adobe reader, FTP etc,

How to add a shortcut to Quick Launch Toolbar?

Set WHSShell=Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") 
MyQuickLaunchToolBar=WSHShell.SpecialFolders("APPData")
MyApplicationPath=MyQuickLaunchToolBar+"Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch"
MyQuickLaunchShortcut=WSHShell.CreateShortcut(MyApplicationPath+"\\Notepad")
MyQuickLaunchShortcut.TargetPath="%windir%\notapad.exe"
MyQuickLaunchShortcut.Save

In the similar manner, we can create shortcuts for the notepad, WinZip, paint, adobe reader, FTP etc,

The special folders are:

• Templates
• Startup
• StartMenu
• SendTo
• Recent
• Programs
• PrintHood
• NetHood
• MyDocuments
• Fonts
• Favorites
• Desktop
• AllUsersStartup
• AllUsersStartMenu
• AllUsersPrograms
• AllUsersDesktop

WshSpecialFolders object provides two properties:

• Item
• Length

WshSpecialFolders object provides one method:

• Count()

The ways to access command-line arguments:

• Access arguments with no names.
• Access arguments with only names.
• Access all the arguments.

WshUnnamed object provides two properties:

• Item
• Length

WshUnnamed object provides one method:

• Count()

How to access WSHUnnamed object?

Set myUnnamedVar=WScript.Agruments.Unnamed

WshUrlShortcut object provides two properties:

• TargetPath
• FullName

WshUrlShortcut object provides one method:

• Save()

WshScriptExec has six properties:

• ExitCode
• ProcessID
• Status
• StdOut
• StdIn
• StdErr

WshScriptExec provides one method

• Terminate()

WshRemoteError provides six properties:

• Description
• Line
• Character
• SourceText
• Source
• Number

WshRemoteError does not have any method.

WshRemote has two properties:

• Status
• Error

WshRemote has two methods:

• Execute()
• Terminate()

WshNetwork has three properties:

• ComputerName
• UserDomain
• UserName

UserName has eight methods:

• AddWindowsPrinterConnection()
• AddPrinterConnection()
• EnumNetworkDrives()
• EnumPrinterConnection()
• MapNetworkDrive()
• RemoveNetworkDrive()
• RemovePrinterConnection()
• SetDefaultPrinter()

WshNamed Object has two properties:

• Item
• Length

WshNamed Object has two methods:

• Count()
• Exists()

The named property of WSHArguments object provides WSHNamed Object(a collection of arguments that have names). This collection retrieves individual argument values with the help of the index.

Below are the ways to access the command line arguments

1. In case the arguments have names then with WSHNamed object.
2. In case the arguments do not have names then with WSHUnnamed object.
3. In case we want to access an entire set of Arguments then with WSHArguments object.

How to use WSHNamed Object?

Set val=WScript.Arguments.Named

How to use item property?

The item property of the WSHNamed object provides access to the items.

 Object.Item(key)

Where the object is WSHNamed Object and key is the String name of the item that we want to fetch.

Item property of the WSHNamed object returns a String.

Length

The length property of the WSHNamed object is a read-only integer that is used when we write JScript.

Count()

The count() method returns the total number of switches in the WSHNamed or WSHUnnamed objects.

Syntax

Object.Count

Where object is Argument object.

Example

For y=0 to WScript.Arguments.count-1
msgbox Wscript.Arguments.Named(y)
Next

Exist()

Exist() method returns a boolean value to indicate if the specific key value exists in the WSHNamed object.

Syntax

Object.Exist(key)

Where the object is the WSHNamed object and key is the string value that represents an argument of the WSHNamed object. If the key exists in the WShNamed object it returns true, otherwise, it returns false.

WshEnvironment has two properties:

• Item
• Length

WshEnvironment provides two methods:

• Count()
• Remove()

Example:

Dim WshShell
Set WshShell=WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set myEnv=WshShell.Environment("SYSTEM")
msgbox myEnv("NUMBER_OF_PROCESS")

Item Property

Item property exposes a specified item from a collection.

Syntax

Object.Item(iIndex)

Where the object is the resultant of the EnumNetworkDrive or EnumPrinterConnection method or the object returned by the Environment or SpecialFolders property.

iIndex is the index to specify which item to fetch. For EnumNetworkDrive or EnumPrinterConnection collection index is an integer; for Environment or SpecialFolders index is a String.

Length

The length property can be used in JScript.

Count() method

The count() method returns a long value which says the number of items in the collection. Example count() method of NamedArgument.

Syntax

Object.count

Where object is the argument object.

Remove() method

Remove() method removes an existing environment variable.

Syntax:

Object.Remove(sName)

Where object is WSHEnvironment object and sName is the String value that signifies the name of the environment variable that we want to remove.

The Remove() method can remove environment variables from the following types of environment

1. PROCESS
2. USER
3. SYSTEM
4. VOLATILE

WshController provides one method called CreateScript() but does not provide any property.

WshArguments has four properties:

• Item
• Length
• Named
• Count
• Unnamed

WshArguments provides two methods:

• Count()
• ShowUsage()

Accessing WSHArgument-

Set objArgs=WScript.Argument

The WSHAgrument is a collection of objects returned by the WScript object’s Argument property.

There are three ways to access the command line arguments. They are as follows:

• Access the arguments that have no names(WSHUnnamed Object)
• Access the arguments that have names(WSHNamed Object)
• Access the whole set of arguments(WSHArgument object)

Example-The below example works on CScript.exe and WScript.exe

Set myArgs=WScript.Arguments
for i=0 to myArgs.count-1
WScript.Echo myArgs.Item(i)
Next

How to Pass Arguments to the VBScript?

Instead of hardcoding the test data into the script, we can dynamically pass the data via arguments to the script. We can configure the system in such a way that if we pass blank data as argument it will take data from the script itself or use some default values or may quite depending upon our settings.

Syntax to pass arguments

WScript xyz.vbs abc,xyz

How to read the arguments from the Script?

With the below-written code, we can read the arguments from the script.

Dim WSHArgs
Set WSHArgs=WScript.Arguments
msgbox "count of argument" & WSHArgs.Count
For i=0 to WSHArgs.Count-1
msgbox WSHArgs.Item(i)
Next

WSH provides an option to include two or more scripts(even though two scripts are written in two different languages) via Windows Script File(extension .wsf).

WScript helps codes by providing the following:

1. Name of the path information of the Script running now.
2. Ability to pause and terminate the script.
3. Ability to link an external resource/object.
4. Ability to query the Microsoft Scripting engine’s version.
5. Ability to interact with the users.

WScript has the below properties:

• Arguments
• BuildVersion
• Version
• StdOut
• StdIn
• StdErr
• ScriptName
• ScriptFullName
• Path
• Name
• Interactive
• FullName

WScript has the below methods:

• CreateObject()
• ConnectObject()
• DisconnectObject()
• Echo()
• GetObject()
• Quit()
• Sleep()

Scripting. Signer provides four methods. They are:

• Sign()
• SignFile()
• Verify()
• VerifyFile()