December, 2004

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a series of Word files. I would like to open each of these files and save them as plain-text files. Is there a way to do that using a script? -- CG Hey, CG. Yes, you can do this quite easily with a script; in fact, with very...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Is there any way to tell whether an Active Directory group is a security group or a distribution group? -- AW Hey, AW. As a matter of fact, there is; this script will tell you what type of group you’re dealing with: Set objGroup...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Is there an easy way to find out what programs have been downloaded for Internet Explorer (the items that are in the folder C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files)? I can use a script to get the executable file names and dependent files...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I’m using the WMI class Win32_Directory to get information about folders on a computer. It works great, except when there’s an apostrophe in the folder name; then, it doesn’t work at all. How can I use WMI to connect to folders that...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Is it possible to get a list of all the domain controllers in my domain? -- KT Hey, KT. As a matter of fact, there are at least two ways to get a list of all domain controllers in your domain. The first way is pretty easy, but not...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I grab a URL from the clipboard and then open that Web site in a browser? -- CL Hey, CL. Interesting question, or, should we say, questions . That’s because there’s really two issues here. The first one is easy: can I use...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I rename an Active Directory group? -- CL Hey, CL. This is actually pretty easy; as you’ll see, it only takes two lines of code. It’s not a hard problem, it’s just a little bit tricky. That’s because ADSI (at least when...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Is there a way for me to log on to a computer using a regular user account, but then run a script as a domain administrator? -- WW Hey, WW. In answer to your question, yes, both WMI and ADSI provide a way for you to run a script...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I map drives in a logon script based on a security group each user belong to? -- RO Hey, RO. Considering the fact that this question has been asked by approximately 3,755,392 of our readers - oops, there’s another one; make...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a folder that contains a bunch of log files. I would like to rename each file based on the date the file was created; for example, if a file was created on December 1, 2004, I’d like to rename it 20041201.log. Is that possible...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I determine the executable file name corresponding to a .lnk shortcut file? -- AM Hey, DE. We’re glad you asked this question; unlike some questions we get (like, “How do I use a script to disable File and Print Sharing...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to get back a list of all the computers in my domain, except for the computers which are in our Test Lab OU. How do I do that? -- AM Hey, AM. This seems to be one of the hot new trends in the IT world: in the past two weeks...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I assign a new UPN to all my users? -- CH Hey, CH. The UPN (or User Principal Name) provides an alternate way of logging on to a domain. Typically you log onto a domain by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete, typing in your user name...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I determine the SID for a user account? -- MD Hey, MD. For those of you whose eyes glaze over any time they see an acronym (not that we blame you), SID is short for Security Identifier. A SID is a unique ID string (e.g....

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I configure a local user account so that the user can’t change his or her password? -- DC Hey, DC. The secret here lies in the mysterious userFlags attribute. We’ll show you how to set a user account so that the user can...

Hey, Scripting Guy! From the command prompt the command copy a.txt+b.txt ab.txt will take the contents of a.txt and the contents of b.txt and combine them into a new file named ab.txt. Can I do the same thing with a script? -- DL Hey, DL. In yesterday...