Rating: 
Summary: THE Scripting Guide to own.
Review: This is an incredible tool. Any administrator wishing to do anything from basic scripting to complex Active Directory or remote computer control needs to pick up this book. For those starting out in administrative scripting, this title offers plain English and easy to understand primers in VBScript and the WSH. For administrators already familiar with the core language, the primers section continues with ADSI and WMI - both written so well as to completely demystify the process. After the primers, a vast amount of information is given on scripting standard production environment tasks, making this title useful regardless of your need for the primers.The true wealth of this title is the ability to get more information out of it than is printed. Besides the abundance of script snippets which are easily used in any production environment, is the printed links to outside information and utilities on Microsoft's web site, as well as the CD-ROM which contains not only an on-line form of the book but many additional tools for generating scripts. As a point of interest, the on-line version of this book is completely free and on Microsoft's web site as well. Search for the title on their site to find it. Certainly not the last purchase you will make for WMI and ADSI scripting. I've found inconsistencies between Microsoft's information and information published by others (usually resolved by the third parties information), which made me glad I had the other titles. All in all - the title is a must for all system administrators.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, must have for the administrator
Review: This is one of the best, if not THE best scripting book I have read. As it states, it is written for the administrator, so its focus is limited to that aspect of scripting. But it is so well focused, well written, concise and full of pertinent examples that I couldn't help but learn more about scripting that is applicable to all aspects of scripting. I have applied lessons learned here to Access VBA, for example, with great effect.
If you have only one book on scripting, this is it. It covers VBScript, JScript, ADSI, WMI, etc. Very well done and well worth the price.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource and reference
Review: Windows 2000 automation goes beyond simple and limited BAT/CMD scripts. For total control of Windows you should definitely learn scripting. Although it has an intimidating look (1300+ pages) this book is actually a fast track resource for learning and putting scripts to work immediately. The included CD has an electronic version of the book (not PDF, but in MS Help file format); it also has a separate link with all the scripts organized by tasks for you to copy and paste on your favorite text editor. My interest was focused on Services, I had an urgent need on my project to automate services to start and stop at specific times during the week. I went directly to Chapter 15 on Services and then back to Chapters 2,3 for VBS and WSH reference. In less than a day I was able to resolve my issue using a combination of scripting and Windows Scheduled Tasks. These scripts saved me from having to come in very early to work (before users came in) to restart services that were being shut down during the daily system maintenance window. Manually restarting the services took me around 40 minutes every morning, so this is also a notable consideration. My only criticism, in the hopes that a future edition would improve an already excellent book:
The author explains that this book was not intended to be read in sequence and you may just get directly to the area of interest, but if you are an experienced administrator without scripting experience you have to get all the way to chapter 3 to find out how to run a script. There should have been an introductory section on this subject since there are many working scripts already available on the CD for administrators to use. I recommend this book to any system administrator who wants to ease their daily work load.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource and reference
Review: Windows 2000 automation goes beyond simple and limited BAT/CMD scripts. For total control of Windows you should definitely learn scripting. Although it has an intimidating look (1300+ pages) this book is actually a fast track resource for learning and putting scripts to work immediately. The included CD has an electronic version of the book (not PDF, but in MS Help file format); it also has a separate link with all the scripts organized by tasks for you to copy and paste on your favorite text editor. My interest was focused on Services, I had an urgent need on my project to automate services to start and stop at specific times during the week. I went directly to Chapter 15 on Services and then back to Chapters 2,3 for VBS and WSH reference. In less than a day I was able to resolve my issue using a combination of scripting and Windows Scheduled Tasks. These scripts saved me from having to come in very early to work (before users came in) to restart services that were being shut down during the daily system maintenance window. Manually restarting the services took me around 40 minutes every morning, so this is also a notable consideration. My only criticism, in the hopes that a future edition would improve an already excellent book:
The author explains that this book was not intended to be read in sequence and you may just get directly to the area of interest, but if you are an experienced administrator without scripting experience you have to get all the way to chapter 3 to find out how to run a script. There should have been an introductory section on this subject since there are many working scripts already available on the CD for administrators to use. I recommend this book to any system administrator who wants to ease their daily work load.
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