Windows.XP.in.a.Nutshell.1002005.2Ed [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

9.3. Executing Scripts

Windows XP supplies two

programs used to run WSH scripts (whatever language they are written
in). wscript.exe is used to run WSH scripts from
the Windows graphical environment, and
cscript.exe is used to run them from the command
line or from within batch files. Both programs are fully documented
in Chapter 4.

9.3.1. Using wscript.exe

Using
wscript.exe,
you can run scripts under Windows in the following ways:

• Double-click on script files or icons listed in My Computer, Windows
  Explorer, the Find window, the Start menu, or on the Desktop.

• If you double-click a script file whose extension has not yet been
  associated with wscript.exe, an Open With dialog
  box appears asking which program you would like to use to open the
  file. After choosing WScript, check the "Always use
  this program to open this file" checkbox, and
  WScript is registered as the default application for all files with
  the same extension as the one you double-clicked.

• Enter wscript, followed by a script name at the
  Run command on the Start menu or at any command prompt. You must
  enter the full name of the script, including the file extension and
  any necessary path information.

Although the wscript.exe application has several
command-line parameters (see "Windows Script Host" in Chapter 4), it's more convenient to
use the Properties window of a script file (right-click the file and
select Properties). Options are set in the usual way, but the
properties are not saved in the script file or in the Registry as you
might expect; instead, a new file with the
.wsh extension is created (the filename prefix
is the same as the original script file). The file is a plain text
file with the familiar

.ini format, and can be
edited with a text editor such as Notepad.

Figure 9-1 shows the Script tab of the properties
for a script file. You can choose whether the script should time out,
what the timeout for the script should be, and whether the script
logo should be displayed when the script is run.

Figure 9-1. The Script tab in a .wsh property sheet

A sample .wsh file might look like this:

[ScriptFile]
Path=C:\Scripts\MyScript.vbs
[Options]
Timeout=30
DisplayLogo=1
BatchMode=0

The Path setting in the [ScriptFile] section
identifies the script file that the .wsh file is
associated with. The keys in the [Options] section
correspond to settings on the Script tab.

A .wsh file can be treated as if it were a
Windows Shortcut; you can run a .wsh file
directly by double-clicking on it, or by using it as the script name
parameter with wscript.exe or
cscript.exe. If you delete the
.wsh file, the original script will be
unaffected. The .wsh files are very useful for
administration purposes. Since you can run a
.wsh file directly (rather than invoking the
script itself), you can use a text editor to create multiple
.wsh files for the same script, each containing
different parameters but the same script name.

9.3.2. Using cscript.exe

Using
cscript.exe,
you can run command-line based WSH scripts from the command prompt.
In most circumstances, you'll want to use the
Windows-based wscript.exe. However,
cscript.exe is more appropriate when used with
command prompt applications or when you need the script to use STDOUT
(standard output), such as when writing CGI scripts for web servers.
This is illustrated by the
Wscript.Echo method described in
Section 9.6 later in this chapter.

Like wscript.exe,
cscript.exe has several command-line parameters
documented in "Windows Script Host" in Chapter 4.