VBScript, WMI, and ADSI Unleashed: Using VBScript, WMI, and ADSI to Automate Windows Administration 2nd Edition

Hey all, I was a noob in all of this scripting stuff when I bought this book. Frankly it was not a bad purchase but it did leave me kind of disappointed. The first few chapters are a waste of time because there just like a huge sales ad for the author's company that sells a VBScript IDE, added to that you never get that feeling that he's fully convinced of what he is telling you, i.e. "You should learn VBScript but it doesn't matter because we have the impending doom looming over called Windows Powershell".Last but not least is the fact related to the title of my review, basically he stresses the point that to learn VBScript you should get the online documentation for it......then what the hell did I buy this book for? If I wanted to learn structured programming I would've bought a C++ book that will do a better job.All in all, the book has it's good points..I just can't remember them right now 'cause I'm hungry and it's Christmas Day. It does give you the basic knowledge what scripts can do, although if you been a windows admin for a while then this will only confirm to you that there are other ways of doing stuff....and that you need the VBScript online documentation (which by the way was hard to find on Microsoft's website) to do them.This is the only scripting book I've so sadly I can't give you an alternative to it or compare it against any but if you really are into self-learning I think that a little organization, time and all the documentation available at MS's website might do.If you have the bucks to spare buy it, if you have time on your hands don't buy and turn over to the Net to learn.

If you have any scripting experience at all, you're better off with a different book. This one is definitely geared more toward the stereotypical minimally competent Windows domain administrator who may or may not be a paper MCSE and who can't be bothered to learn anything outside the specific scope of his job.The book claims to aim at the VBScript neophyte, but it would help to have at least seen or, better, copy-pasted and modified some scripts before diving into this book. The author constantly uses concepts and language constructs from upcoming chapters before they're covered. This practice is frustrating, but may be justified in the very beginning of the book, while he's covering the VBScript language itself - it's difficult to put together a non-trivial program without using a few different programming concepts. However, he even does this after he's finished with the VBScript introduction; he uses ADSI stuff when he's trying to explain WSH, for example. It can be a little daunting trying to learn one concept when four new ones are being thrown at you.I also felt, as I see in other reviews here, that the author spends way too much energy trying to sell the reader on his company's scripting IDE. Seriously, I bought a scripting book, not an advertisement. To top it off, it doesn't even sound like his program is any better than Notepad++ (which is free and GPL).In addition, the author inadvertently helped me to choose JScript over VBScript, even though JScript is not covered in the book. It's obvious from the text and the information I find online that VBScript is a horribly crippled language, and I have a decent amount of experience with Javascript anyway.In all, I wouldn't say that this is a BAD book, as I did learn enough about WSH, WMI, and ADSI to be able to search for what I really need on Microsoft's reference site, but I don't think I'll be buying another book from this author or Sams Publishing.

I had originally studied the Microsoft Press book "Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide", but still needed more.VBScript, WMI and ADSI Unleashed is the book that I wish I had read first. It is a good choice for a system admin who wants to start scripting administrative tasks.Having never scripted before, I had many questions. This book started from the beginning, what editor should I use for programming, and took me all the way to my first scripted program....to search AD for all Servers at or below a specified OU, remotely attach to each server, determine if it is a physical or virtual computer, run a hardware configuration utility as appropriate, reconfigure the hardware as appropriate based on the utilities output and report back to me the results. I went from nothing to decent in about two weeks.This is a good choice for this type of book.

Great job of delivery and a nice clean book for a good price.

Very good reference material

I found this book to be very helpful and practical with the examples given in the book. The examples have come in useful for me for basic systems administration in my Windows Server 2003 network with Active Directory. The author breaks down the example codes line by line and explains what is going on, which I found to be very helpful.one thing I did not like was that some times the author purposely put mistakes in the code without initially telling you. Then towards the end of the section, he will ask you why the code did not work and will tell you what went wrong and why. He doesn't do this all the time, but a few times. It made me second guess myself and thought that the publisher had bad typos in the code, something familiarly seen in a lot of programming books. Good learning experience, I suppose.Even if you are a beginner programmer wanting to learn VBscripting, I think you would be able to get the gist of VBscript by copying the examples in the book and tweaking them for your needs. This is my first VBscript book and it's definitely a keeper for me. Highly recommended!

What a pleasure! This is a book written for technical administrators, by a technical administrator with a knack for writing. Don Jones demonstrates a talent for explaining the intricacies of monitoring and administering a Windows enterprise using WMI & ADSI scripting (et al) in a perfectly comprehensible manner without coming across annoyingly simplistic or condescendingly academic. Computer book writers take note!

I just received it, my first book on VBScript. I did a lot of research before settling for this one. With quick glance through, I can see it is properly organised and simplistic in its delivery of concepts and techniques. I will enjoy learning VBscript using this.

really old, no use today