Where do I start ?

[nu_duster]

Hi all,

I have read and leaned much from the community on this site and My many thanks for everyones efforts ! I love to work on my GUI and learn how my computers work. This of course leads to my reinstalling OS and Apps often. I use nLite ( Thank you Nihi !!) what a useful program. learning by hands on has many draw backs which has bought me to write my first post. The help I need is your opinions on the easiest way for a beginner to start scripting. Is their a beginner's guide ? I would like to use WPI but , I do not have a foundation to start from and all the help I have been able to find is not detailed enough for a beginner like me. I also looked at Autoit 3 but don't know where to start their either. I just want to start with things like, where programs install, pre registration, custom ico's, etc. during install of custom XP_CD. Hopefully there is a simple why to start and someone would be kind enough too help !! If I am asking for something that is not permitted on the forum, sorry and PM me. Thanks for your help!!!

nu_duster

[CoffeeFiend]

Lots of the tasks can be accomplished by very simple batch files like we've had since the early DOS days.

And of course you could learn a scripting language (or more than one), there's no shortage of them (VBScript, JScript, PowerShell, AutoIt, Winbatch, KiXtart, etc). There's loads of learning resources for most of them, but you'll have to chose one first, and that choice is a personal one. No one can make it for you. None of them is all-around better at everything either. It comes down to needs and preferences.

There's no need to double post BTW.

[Mordac85]

I'd recommend you start with simple batch files to understand how to lay out the logic flow and the pain of syntax errors. Then move to something common to your platform like PowerShell or VBscript which open the doors to doing much more and being more flexible about how you do it.

And remember, Google is your friend.

[nu_duster]

Mordac85

Thank you for your reply. Starting with batch files and them a script is what I would like to do. The kind of help I am looking for, is what resources to use, Books , how to resources on-line , etc etc. You did how ever confirm that I am trying to start in the right place. But with what ? I am surprised of how few replies I received. I do google a lot, but if you can't make an informed decision you just waste your time and money.

crahak sorry about double post, that was my first post every , an did not know you could see in more than one place.

I hope readers will post some good inf. Thanks again

Edited July 12, 2008 by nu_duster

[Mordac85]

OK to start with look at what you do a lot of and see if it can be done with a script. I'm in a corporate environment and I'm always trying to get basic info about a user's system before calling them back. So what do I want to find out? Computername, IP address, etc? Now how do I do that now and can it be done with a script? Here's a snippet I use for the IP address that should give you something to see what's possible. Remember, if you can do something manually you can most likely automate it, so why sit around typing and clicking when you have so much computing power at your finger tips?

for /f "tokens=2 delims=[]" %%i in ('ping -n 1 %1') do set IP=%%i
nbtstat -A %IP%

As for references, I have books for Perl since it can get complicated and my memory isn't that great, but otherwise I use online references for batch files and others. Rob van der Woude is an excellent reference to start with b/c he also includes samples of how to use certain functions and has a number of tips and scripting tricks. Labmice.net has some good references also. And Laurence Soucy has a good indexed listing of the basic DOS commands, mostly the std MS definitions so it's not as straightforward, but a good source for syntax.

If you need more, please let me know.