June, 2005

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I add a line to the top of a text file? -- FT Hey, FT. You know, at one point in his career Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually killed off Sherlock Holmes, figuring he’d written everything anyone could ever write about the master...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet I periodically analyze using a script. How can I change the color of a cell to red if the date stored in that cell has passed? -- DM Hey, DM. We were going to start today’s column off with some...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I list all the attributes used by the Computer class in Active Directory? -- KP Hey, KP. Thanks for your question. In response, yes, it is true that the Kirkland Fire, the Colt League baseball team coached by one of the...

Hey, Scripting Guy! We have a number of OUs in our domain that have the word Servers in the OU name. How can I retrieve a list of those OUs? -- AM Hey, AM. One of the Scripting Guys has a 15-year-old son who, whenever he hears his father tell a story...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In my HTA, how can I get the actual text of a list box or dropdown list option? -- MM Hey, MM. You might be familiar with an old Mac Davis song, a song that starts off like this: Oh Lord it's hard to be humble When you're perfect...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Given a date, can a script tell me the date that the Friday for that week occurs? -- DLR Hey, DLR. Too bad you didn’t ask which dates Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays fall on; coincidentally enough, each of the Scripting Guys have...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a script that compares two email addresses and tells me whether or not they are the same. Sometimes the email addresses are the same, but the case is different: for example, one address might be example@abc.com and the other...

Hey, Scripting Guy! We have a custom application that adds some attributes to the Active Directory schema. These attributes have hyphens in their names, and I can’t figure out how to retrieve the value of those attributes; any time I try to connect...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I check to see if a particular file exists and, if it does, exit the script? -- TO Hey, TO. There are at least two ways to check for the existence of a file (that’s the real key here; exiting the script is easy). One of...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In previous columns you’ve shown us how to present users with a dialog box that enables them to select files. Is there any way to show them a dialog box that only lets users select folders? -- LP Hey, LP. You know, you’ve come to...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I delete data from a spreadsheet yet keep all the formatting? -- TB Hey, TB. From your email it sounds like you have a script that periodically replaces data in a spreadsheet with new, up-to-date values. The spreadsheet...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In my logon script how can I determine the name of the domain controller that authenticated the user? -- CK Hey, CK. You know, one of the unwritten rules for being a Scripting Guy is that you should never do anything hard more than...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I determine the local area connection that’s associated with a particular IP address? -- SH Hey, SH. Believe it or not, this is a fairly complicated procedure, and for two reasons. To begin with, we have to use two separate...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I change the amount of disk space set aside for Internet Explorer’s temporary files folder? -- AD Hey, AD. The first draft of this column we were able to bang out in no time; after all, it consisted entirely of this: ...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I know I can use the Split function to split a line into individual items. But how can I tell how many “splits” I ended up with; that is, how many individual items did I generate from a single line? -- SA Hey, SA. For those of you...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I clear a text box in an HTA? -- CB Hey, CB. You know, it’s been awhile since we’ve answered a question about HTAs (HTML Applications). And we could probably get away with that except for the fact that a month or so ago...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I hide a specific toolbar in Microsoft Word? -- AG Hey, AG. Now this question brings back memories. When our editor joined the team one of her first actions was to make us redo a whole bunch of screenshots we had made for...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I tally items in a text file? -- JA Hey, JA. If we understand you correctly you have a text file that consists of a number of lines, each line representing a particular item. Just to keep things simple, let’s say your text...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I list all the user profiles on a computer? -- GN Hey, GN. You want to know a secret? We hate questions about user profiles. It’s not that we have anything against user profiles. The problem is that user profiles represent...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I list all the user profiles on a computer? -- GN Hey, GN. You want to know a secret? We hate questions about user profiles. It’s not that we have anything against user profiles. The problem is that user profiles represent...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to create a custom alert box that has over 1,000 characters in it. The message box used by Wscript.Echo can hold all the characters, but I can’t change the message box title. I can change the title of a message box used by the...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I retrieve the path to the %windir% folder on a computer? -- DS Hey, DS. Interesting that you should ask this question. This same question happened to be asked on an internal Microsoft mailing list just the other day, and...