Scripting Pro VIP Update, March 7, 2007

In This Issue

Perspectives: What Do You Want to See in Scripting Pro VIP? Tell Me in the New Members-Only Forum Site

It took a while, but the members-only Scripting Pro VIP forum site is now live. You can set up your profile and start posting now at http://community.scriptingprovip.com. The site currently has eight forums, one of which is Input Inbox.

I'm especially excited about the Input Inbox forum. In this forum, you can tell me about the topics you'd like covered, code you'd like to see, and improvements you'd like made. I'm really interested in learning about the types of articles you'd like to see in Scripting Pro VIP. For example, would you like to see articles that discuss how to automate tasks in Active Directory (AD), Office SharePoint Server 2007, or another program or application? If so, what types of tasks? Would you like to see more articles that discuss how to use such technologies as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) or Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI)? What scripting languages are you most interested in? Would you like Scripting Pro VIP to include product coverage, such as reviewing third-party products?

By letting me know what you'd like to read about, I can make your subscription more valuable to you.

Besides the Input Inbox forum, you can post comments or questions in one of the other forums:

I hope you'll visit the forum site soon. Remember, it's open only to Scripting Pro VIP subscribers, so you can quickly get help (and occasional sympathy) from your fellow scripters and from Scripting Pro VIP's scripting experts.
—Karen Bemowski, Scripting Pro VIP Editor

Scripting Pro VIP Exclusive: A Chat with a Pair of PowerShell Power Brokers

Scripting Pro VIP recently had a chance to chat with Microsoft's Jeffrey Snover, partner architect, and Scott Ottaway, senior product manager, about PowerShell. Learn their take on how PowerShell fits into the grand scripting scheme, what resources Microsoft is recommending to those people who want to learn PowerShell, and what their personal favorite features are. You can read this article, which is available only to Scripting Pro VIP subscribers, by clicking here or by entering 95369 in the InstantDoc ID box on the Scripting Pro VIP Web site.

Coming in March

"Create Excel Reports the VBScript Way, Part 2" by Jim Turner

Last month, Jim Turner started a five-part series that gives you a detailed tour of how to use VBScript scripts to produce Excel reports. This month, he continues that tour and discusses how to use two subroutines: XLCharts and XLHyperlinks. With the XLCharts subroutine, you can quickly create effective bar charts. With the XLHyperlinks subroutines, you can create links to make your reporting more comprehensive.
This article is now live on the Web.

"Rename Files by Using Regular Expressions" by Bill Stewart

If you often need to rename a group of files and folders en masse, you've probably discovered that Windows Explorer isn't well suited for this task. Bill Stewart has written a script, Renamer.js, that brings the power of regular-expression pattern matching to the mundane task of renaming files and folders. If you need to perform a mass-renaming operation, Renamer.js might be just what you need. Even if you don't need to perform such an operation, this article can give you tips on how to effectively use regular expressions.
Coming March 14

"Validate File Extensions" by Dave Roth

One way to gauge a computer's health is to monitor for broken file-extension mappings. They can indicate that a virus or malware is deleting files from your system or that users are incorrectly removing or reconfiguring applications. Broken file-extension mappings can also be a sign of random application corruption. In "Validate File Extensions," Dave Roth provides a Perl script that you can use to examine file mappings and determine whether any are broken and what you need to do to fix the problem.
Coming March 21

Reader to Reader: "Use Modifiers to Expand or Shorten a Script's Name on the Fly" by Logan Lam

In Windows shell scripts, you can use the %0 variable to obtain the name of the script being executed. By using modifiers, you can easily obtain a variation of that name, such as the fully qualified path name or just the file extension.
Coming March 28

Reader to Reader: "An MMC-less Way to Add Computers to Global Groups" by James Lim

Adding computers to global groups in the MMC Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in takes multiple searches and many mouse clicks. If you often have to perform this task, you'll want to check out the AddComputers.vbs script.
Coming March 28

February's Articles Now Available in PDF Format

For easy reading and printing, we've compiled all the February Scripting Pro VIP articles in a single .pdf file. You can download this .pdf file, along with all the code for those articles, by clicking here. To recap, here are the articles that were featured in February:

"Create Excel Reports the VBScript Way, Part 1" by Jim Turner
"Script Improves Upon Microsoft's Daylight Saving Time Patch" by Chang Lu
"Scripting Data Flow in SQL Server Integration Services" by Robert Sheldon
Reader to Reader: "Subroutine Makes File Cleanup a Snap" by Buzzy Winter
Reader to Reader: "VBScript Function Quickly Queries Databases" by Sharon M. Levine