{"id":5828,"date":"2013-03-12T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sapien.com\/blog\/?p=5828"},"modified":"2013-03-12T00:52:22","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T08:52:22","slug":"jazz-up-your-vbscripts-with-powershell-and-windows-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.sapien.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/12\/jazz-up-your-vbscripts-with-powershell-and-windows-forms\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz up your VBScripts with PowerShell and Windows Forms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sure, you are supposed to write all new scripts in PowerShell. Some say you can replace any VBScript with a single line in PowerShell. But the truth is, many of you still have to maintain, develop and debug scripts written in VBScript. Some of our customers also have to maintain VBScript or JScript files that run under a custom host, automating some server application that likely will never be changed to use PowerShell. And, judging from some emails we get, you cast a jealous look at this new fangled Windows Forms stuff the PowerShell crowd uses to make great tools. Well, fear not, you can too. The following applies to any scripting language that can use COM objects even through our example uses VBScript. So if you use Perl, AutoIt, JScript, Haskell or some other language I haven\u2019t even heard of, this will work too. And best of all, anything I will show you here is free.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s assume you have this script that queries a network server for disk utilization. All you have available in VBScript to prompt for a server name is VBScript\u2019s inputbox. (Disclaimer: I intentionally ignore HTAs) That requires a user to type a name,\u00a0 which can be error prone, considering some machine naming conventions we have seen. Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if you could just<\/p>\n