Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I configure the Days to keep pages in history setting in Internet Explorer? -- AK Hey, AK. To tell you the truth, at first we were a little hesitant about answering this question. Why? Well, we’ve all seen enough TV to know...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I disable a computer account? -- MD Hey, MD. You know, our first thought when we read your question was to ask our very own Peter Costantini, a scripting guru who’s done a lot of work with Active Directory. For better or...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I delete everyone except the Administrator and the Domain Admins group from the local Administrators group? -- JS Hey, JS. You know, when you become a doctor you have to take the Hippocratic Oath, which famously begins,...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I use alternate credentials when searching Active Directory? -- PT Hey, PT. So what’s the big idea here? Devoted readers of this column (both of them) know that we usually love tackling questions where the answer...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a script that my help desk people use to create user accounts. Unfortunately, sometimes these help desk personnel get in a hurry and type in names like this: kEn MYEr. How can I convert names to proper case (i.e., Ken Myer)...

Hey, Scripting Guy! When I use Windows Explorer to connect to a remote computer, I can see a description of that computer in the Details pane. How can I change the description for a computer? -- GF Hey, GF. Just to make sure everyone is clear what...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I print text files to a printer other than the default printer? -- JD Hey, JD. Boy, talk about pride going before the fall. When we first set out to answer this question we already “knew” how to solve the problem. We were...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I convert an Outlook email message into a text file? -- MW Hey, MW. You know what drives the Scripting Guys crazy? (We mean besides the other Scripting Guys.) It’s this: people who barely say hello before they start making...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I change the location of a user’s home drive in Active Directory? -- DS Hey, DS. Did you ever read the story The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe? In that story the narrator commits the perfect crime: he kills an old man...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I remove all the local printers from a computer? -- JW Hey, JW. You did say that you wanted to do this only on computers running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, didn’t you? You didn’t? Oh. Well, we’re going to pretend...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I use WSH to close a command window with a specific title? -- MF Hey, MF. You know, some things are just really hard to believe, regardless of whether or not they happen to be true. For example, according to the Big Bang...

Hey, Scripting Guy! In Microsoft Word 2003, my documents open as Final Showing Markup . How can I change this so the default view is Final ? -- CD Hey, CD. You know, this is the first Hey, Scripting Guy! column we’ve written since returning from the...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I rename files like _JKG1234.jpg to 272_DSC_1234.jpg? -- NA Hey, NA. You know, NA, we feel sorry for you. Why? Well, on the one hand you’re unbelievably lucky. After all, the Scripting Guys never write scripts that they...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I use wildcards to get a list of all the groups whose name starts with G-S-Group? -- JD Hey, JD. It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and one of the Scripting Guys is headed out of town as soon as he finishes his Hey...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I sort worksheets in a workbook? -- FS Hey, FS. How can you sort worksheets in a workbook? Well, to tell you the truth, not as easily as we had hoped you could sort worksheets in a workbook. This doesn’t mean it can’t be...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I lock a workstation after five minutes of inactivity, something recommended to us by our auditors? -- NM Hey, NM. To tell you the truth, we don’t know. Locking a computer remotely can be a bit of a problem; for more information...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I verify that ADAM is installed? -- CW Hey, CW. Although former President Ronald Reagan is usually given credit for the phrase “Trust but verify,” we’ve always thought that sounded more like the sort of thing a system administrator...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I import a fixed-width file into Microsoft Excel? -- JP Hey, JP. We have a confession to make here, something we’re terribly ashamed of: for a moment - just for a moment, mind you - we doubted Microsoft Excel. Yes, we know...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Awhile back you showed us a method to determine the height and width of a picture file. However, that solution required us to import all our picture files into Windows Media Player. Isn’t there another way to get this information,...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a fixed-width text file which includes first name (6 characters), last name (13 characters), and department (9 characters) all on a single line. How do I read that using ADO? -- DW Hey, DW. Well, to be perfectly honest, we...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I tell if ActiveX is enabled in Internet Explorer? -- JV Hey, JV. You just had to ask this question, didn’t you? Actually, this isn’t a particularly hard question to answer, it’s just a little complicated. But that has to...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I get the command window to stay open after running a tool like Ping or Ipconfig? -- DB Hey, DB. Now this question takes us back. Back when one of the Scripting Guys first started here at Microsoft many people thought WMI...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I receive notification any time something is printed to a particular printer? -- IL Hey, IL. You know, one of the Scripting Guys once had a summer job in an organization where the only decent printer in the entire building...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I clear an HTA window? -- DF Hey, DF. Well, to tell you the truth, if you’d ever seen at least one of the Scripting Houses you wouldn’t be asking us if we knew how to clear a window; it’s pretty obviously some of us don...

Hey, Scripting Guy! On May 3 rd you showed us how to merge multiple files in Microsoft Word. I’d like to do that, but put a page break between each file. -- CE Hey, CE. You know, when we read your email our first thought was this: no way did we show...