ISBN: 0735622442
List Price: $49.99
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: As good as they say
This is an excellent follow on book to "Microsoft Windows 2000 Scripting Guide," ISBN: 0735618674, which was my previous bible. I had long ago advanced past much of what is written in that excellent foundation book for VBScript, and this advanced volume really fills in the gaps. After purchasing numerous VB and VBA references that are nothing more than syntax libraries, I feel I finally have the big picture on the capabilities of this technology with this book. It is all clear.
Combined with the Windows Internals book, I don't think there is anything I couldn't do now that I had wanted to do with this technology previously. The chapters on scripting database connections and HTAs are worth the price alone. If you do any serious scripting work, this book is the true capstone. And who else could publish such a book than the horse's mouth itself?
Summary: Delivers what it promises
It never ceases to amaze me how many scripting books, including this one, start off telling you that you should already have intermediate to advanced scripting skills before you read, yet spend an initial chapter explaining what an array or an object is. It leaves me feeling that their definition of what "advanced" is will differ greatly from mine. I am also always a little dismayed when throughout, a book plugs a costly script development studio and spends time pointing out why your chosen script editor isn't good enough for your projects.
That said, Advanced VBScript delivers what it promises. It is written for intermediate to advanced scripters and has the primary goal of introducing scripting formats, utilities, objects and processes that might otherwise be overlooked. The beginning introduces you to the WSF XML format for scripts, why you would want to use it, and how to convert your existing scripts to this format. From there you are shown how to utilize scripts as COM objects, how to add an interface to your scripts via HTML and HTA applications, performing remote scripting, and expand your scripts ability using database, ADSI, WMI components. The last section focuses on working with Exchange 2003, MOM 2005 and Virtual Server 2005. At around 500 pages, the book is certainly not an exhaustive reference for each component examined. You are provided a good introduction and general instructions to the topic, given many recipe scripts for immediate inclusion in your environment, and then provided additional detail on where to go to focus on the topic.
The book is formatted to not only be a start to finish textbook, but also serve as an excellent reference guide for the introduced components later on. Although you may find similar scripting information scattered about other VBScript books, here you have a great deal of well presented topics that cover a broad spectrum of concepts. Inclusion of this title to your reference library will provide you the information you need while keeping your bookshelf compact.
Summary: Finally, a truly advanced scripting book for VBScript
Having worked with VBScript for a little over four years I am by no means an expert; however, I feel that my experience does give me somewhat of an advanced applied knowledge of scripting. I was pretty skeptical when I saw the word "Advanced" in the title, but this book laid all my concerns to rest in the early chapters.
The book begins with securing (including digital certs and policies) and encoding scripts as well as listing some nice techniques for implementing alternate credentials in WMI and ADSI. For me personally, the real meat and potatoes of the book was the copious information pertaining to working with WSF and WSC files. Don and Jeffrey take the time to detail the reasons behind XML functionality as well as it's application within the scripted files. These guys clear up a lot of questions on these two subjects and how to package your scripts using these technologies. They wrap up the package peice with explanations around HTA's and form controls in HTML scripts.
The book moves on to cover topics such as ADSI and ADO scripting, working with WshController and remote scripts, WMI and WQL classes and techniques, and different applicable real world examples. All this information is then wrapped up with tidbits of using scripting editors to debug, sign, and package your scripts as well the wizards (WMI, ADSI, WSF, etc) and other tools available to make scripting easier.
I've obtained quite a few VBScript books over the years and this one is by far the only one dedicated to truly advanced VBScripting. If you are new to scripting with VBScript, you might want to start with another book geared to learning the methods, properties, classes, etc of the syntax and the technologies it can use. While this book does offer great explanations on advanced topics, you really need to have a solid background in scripting before you read it.
Thumbs up! Highly recommended bang for the buck!
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