March, 2008

Hey, Scripting Guy! I recently came across your article where you showed people how to use VBScript to add a domain user to a local group. How can I do that same task using Windows PowerShell? -- KE Hey, KE. Before we begin we thought we should mention...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Is there any way to get an HTA to remember its previous position onscreen? Some of my users are very particular about moving an HTA to a specific spot on the screen, then wanting it to reappear at that same spot the next time they...

Hey, Scripting Guy! We’re trying to straighten out our Active Directory, and in order to do so, I’ve been asked to come up with a list of all the groups that have just 1 member or fewer. How can I write a script that will return this information...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I manage over 300 servers in our environment. For each server I need to determine the members of the local Administrators account. It’s easy to get a list of local users and domain users that belong to the Admin account; it’s also...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I change the last-accessed date for all the files in a folder? I want the last-accessed date to match the date and time that the file was last modified. -- GW Hey, GW. Say, did you realize that yesterday was Opening Day...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get a list of all the computers in my domain, grouping those computers by the OU in which the computer account resides? -- TA Hey, TA. Well, today is Monday, and the Scripting Guy who writes this column is actually glad...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I determine if a computer has a removable drive attached to it and, if it does, copy a file to that drive? I have no way of knowing what the drive letter of that removable drive would be, assuming it even exists. -- SN Hey...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I’ve looked through the entire Script Center but I can’t find an example of what I need to do: find all the .DOC files on drives C and D, but using a single WMI query. In other words, I want to write a WMI query similar to this: Where...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a CAD staff that occasionally travels between sites. What I would like to do, in a logon script, is map a set of drives based on their current location, that is, their current subnet. I need the script to first check and see...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I am trying to get my photos sorted in chronological order, even though – because they come from different cameras – they have different names. For example, one name type starts with DSC followed by a sequential number issued by one...

Hey, Scripting Guy! We have an Excel spreadsheet in which we use different colors as a way to track status information. That works out really good for us, except for one thing: sometimes we’d like to sort the spreadsheet by color. As near as I can tell...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I'm looking for a script that can search a file server and list the number and total size of files that have been recently modified or added to the server. Any help would be appreciated! -- KT Hey, KT. Before we launch into today...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In PowerPoint user information is stored under the Tools menu. I would like to know if there is a way to extract this data by using a script. -- TV Hey, TV. You know, you might find this hard to believe, but the Scripting Guy who...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I find all the folders that start with a specific string? For example, given the string 123 the script would find folders 123000 through 123999. -- MD Hey, MD. Here in the US we’re still busy trying to figure out who’s going...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I'm trying to automate a tedious license server task. To do this, I need to loop through a text file line-by-line, grab out a user name, asset number, and license ID, and then pass those values to a batch file. How can I do all that...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I add a hotkey to a button in my HTA? -- TM Hey, TM. As usual, the Monday column is being written on Friday; however, the Scripting Guy who writes this column is having far more trouble getting things done than he usually...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I make sure that data entered into an InputBox has the form X: , where X is any alphabetic character? That’s important, because I need to use this string to map logical drives in a script. The script should validate any string...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a folder with about 1800 shortcuts in it. I need to retrieve the file name and the target for each of these shortcuts in order to import that information into a database. Do you have any idea how I can retrieve this information...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to search a certain directory for files with a size of 0 KB, then replace the non-existent text in those files with an error message like this one: "File did not save correctly." I have been searching for the answer myself and...

Hey, Scripting Guy! My company would like me to change our Active Directory logon names from this format – kmyer – to this format: Ken.Myer . Is there a way I can script all these changes? -- DO Hey, DO. You know, sometimes the Scripting Guy who writes...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need a little help. I have one top folder with many subfolders ; the subfolders are all top-level subfolders like C:\Scripts\Folder1 and C:\Scripts\Folder2. In each subfolder I have a text file with the same name. I need to open...