Rem - 14 Jan 2000

Create a text file that contains the lines

Save the file, naming it New Windows Script File.wsf.

Copy or move New Windows Script File.wsf to the default path C:program filesmicrosoft visual studiocommonideide98ewfileitems.

Use Notepad to create a file that contains the code in Listing 1. The Registry key that callout A in Listing 1 highlights must be on one line and not wrapped as Listing 1 shows. Save the file, naming it wsedit.reg.

Run wsedit.reg. A Registry Editor dialog box will appear that asks you to confirm the Registry changes. Click Yes. A second Registry Editor dialog box will appear that asks you to acknowledge the changes. Click OK.

Start Visual InterDev. Select Tools, Options on the Visual InterDev menu bar.

Select HTML in the treeview on the left side of the Options dialog box. Then select Start HTML pages in: Source in the Initial View section on the right side of the Options dialog box. Click OK to apply the change.

Select File, New File on the Visual InterDev menu bar.

Select the New Windows Script File icon in the New File dialog box. Click Open. A New Windows Script File# edit window will open in the Source view, where you can see whether Syntax Coloring is working.

Type the following lines between the opening and closing

When you type the opening parenthesis after CreateObject, IntelliSense will offer Parameter Info. In addition, when you type the dot operator (i.e., the period) after oNet, IntelliSense will display the List Members pop-up menu. This pop-up menu lists the methods and properties that WSH's Network object exposes.

You must use the .wsf format for IntelliSense and Syntax Coloring to work. Raw VBScript or JScript source files don't support these features. If you prefer not to run your scripts as Windows Script Files, you can remove the opening and closing and My employer mandates Perl as the company's scripting language. VBScript isn't an option. Can you use Perl to create WSH scripts?Providing you have an ActiveX scripting engine that plugs into the WS architecture, you can use Perl (or any other ActiveX-compliant scripting language) to create WSH scripts. For example, ActiveState offers an ActiveX-compliant Perl-based scripting engine called PerlScript. You can use PerlScript to develop WSH-compliant scripts. ActiveState includes the PerlScript engine with its ActivePerl distribution. When you run ActivePerl Setup, PerlScript installs by default. PerlScript relies on the core Perl runtime to function. You can download ActivePerl for free from ActiveState at http://www.activestate.com.After you install ActivePerl, you can test the PerlScript installation with the script in Listing 2. Here's how the script interacts with WSH's Network object. The script begins by creating a reference to the Network object. After the script initializes the $objNet reference, the script uses WSH's Echo method to display, or echo, the values of the three properties that the Network object exposes (i.e., ComputerName, UserDomain, and UserName). Next, the script calls the EnumNetworkDrives method that the Network object exposes and echoes the result. The $objNetDrives variable holds the result that the EnumNetworkDrives method returns. If the script finds a mapping to "Z:" in the result, the script uses the Network object's RemoveNetworkDrive method to disconnect the network drive. This action prepares the script for the next statement, in which the script maps "z:" to the local C$ administrative share. The script ends by enumerating and echoing the mapped network drives a second time.As you can see, you can use Perl to create WSH scripts. However, you can achieve the same result in a more elegant and efficient manner by using Perl's Win32-based modules and extensions. In this case, you can use the Win32::OLE module instead of WSH.