Good Day all, I work for a large enterprise and recently they have been encourging us in the desktop support team to take a active role in scripting technologies. I want to know is it really even worth it. Sure i understand the benefits of automation but to do common task(reboot machines or retrieve information from a remote host)you might as well purchase a 3rd party tool. I wanted to know if anyone has any experience scripting in a large enviroment and did it ever come in handy that a another application couldnt do. Also, VBScript seems easy and powershell even easier..thats my two cents.

Anything a script can do, a program can do faster and/or better. Then again, I can write a script to add 1,000 users into an AD faster than I can select, purchase, and install a third party application with similar features. (Actually, at my current employer, I'd require someone from the Application Installation department to install said software. So, as long as I can write the script in under a week, it's faster than using a new third party app.) VBScript's ActiveX support makes it powerful. Power Shell, which gives you access to .NET objects, holds even more power, but is not native to any currently released version of Windows. Command scripts/batch files are a joke, but for some reason, the long standing favorite. EDIT: And then, there are just some custom situations that are just easier to pull together with scripting. For example, once I log into my PC, I have to log into seven separate applications/environments. Scripting allows me to do so while I get something to drink.

Question, so how easy is it to learn powershell ? Also, is scripting essential or is it a hobby. As a desktop support tech or even a sysadmin, i really dont see it as essential especially when in larger enterprises you either have a team dedicated to that purpose (scripting) or you dont have the time because you have 70 other issues.

Power Shell? It's easy enough, I suppose. I haven't played with it much past simple single line pipes. I doubt I'll do much with it until it comes with some version of Windows. (It was originally going to replace CMD in Windows Vista. Obviously that never happened.) If you are serious about learning Power Shell, try MS' newsgroup dedicated to the subject and/or learn C#. Is scripting essential for a support tech? No, probably not. Most problem solving isn't routine enough for scripting. Even if it were, I'd want my techs to think before mind-numbingly running script X. Is scripting essential for a System Administrator? Yes. Any sysadmin worth his salt knows the scripting language of his chosen system well enough to at least read and modify scripts. (Actually, any sysadmin worth his salt probably also has a fair grasp of programming, but I digress.) If you have a scripting department, the admin should still know some scripting because (1) you'd think "System Administrator" would rank above "Script Monkey" in the corporate ladder; (2) a sysadmin is personally responsible for any program/script he installs/uses; and (3) the scripters may not know the scripting language you require and/or not have an applicable testing environment. The best system administrator I've ever worked for would show up for work in the morning, run a handful of scripts, check to make sure everything was okay, then leave for the day less than two hours later. He was a boss who knew proper time management, crisis management, delegation, and scripting to get things done. I can only hope to be as good one day.

New to Windows scripting? Start HERE. i_Xp/VistaUser