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Introduction to VBScript and our Learning Style
This nugget explains what you'll learn in the full series and covers the prerequisites, assumptions, and expectations you should have for this series. Plus it goes over the network Greg uses in teaching you VBScript and the unique learning style he uses to help you quickly pick up VBScript scripting skills.
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00:21:31 |
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Tools & Techniques for VBScripting
In this video, we go over tools you can use to help with your scripting. Learn about the VBSEdit tool -- the primary tool for authoring and running VBScript scripts. Plus discover other no-cost and for-cost scripting tools.
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00:28:46 |
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Quick Dive: First Base - Basic Enumeration Scripts
Before diving into syntax, it's important to start with some introductory scripts that help you with your daily tasks. The next four "Quick Dive" sections go over some easy-to-build scripts that pull basic enumeration data out of a computer system using WMI. This video starts basic by teaching you how to pull this data from your computer and display it on screen.
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00:26:57 |
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Quick Dive: Second Base - Adding Results Files
Adding to what we learned in the first base, we add results files to our basic enumeration scripts. This lets us store our result information in a file instead of just showing it on the screen.
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00:24:33 |
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Quick Dive: Third Base - Adding Remoting
Going another step, we'll use remoting to query other systems on the network for basic enumeration information. You'll learn to use an input file to choose which computers to query for this information.
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00:22:33 |
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Quick Dive: Home Plate - Adding Emailing and Notification
Finishing up our "quick dive" series, we'll learn how we can e-mail our results files to our Inbox or even to our pager. Plus discover how to set up notifications that tell you when a specific set of conditions occur on your network.
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00:23:51 |
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Syntax: The Basics, Looping, Conditions, & Arguments
Moving away from the "quick dive", the next few sections will discuss syntax -- best practices to use that make sure your scripts run well. This first video covers the basics of scripting, plus teaches how to set up loops, conditional statements like If...Then statements, and arguments at the command line.
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00:33:22 |
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Syntax: Text, String, & Date Manipulation
Discover the best ways to manipulate text using your scripts, including how to manipulate a large amount of text programmatically from within your scripts. Learn what makes dates different from normal text in scripting, and how to manipulate dates to make them readable by humans plus how to do date arithmetic.
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00:30:13 |
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Syntax: Error Handling
Oops... That script didn't do what you wanted. Knowing how to do scripting is great when the scripts work right the first time. But, they rarely work right the first time. Learn how to set up your script to handle errors so you can watch where they occur then troubleshoot and fix them.
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00:18:38 |
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Syntax: Arrays and Disconnected Recordsets
Sure it's simple to store a name, but how do you handle more complex data? Learn how arrays and disconnected recordsets allow you to process and store complex data. Discover when and how to use each, plus how to push data into them and then get it back out. For recordsets, you also learn how to easily sort the data to get it into the right order.
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00:26:41 |
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Syntax: Functions & Subs
You have two choices when you write a script: 1) write it to use for one specific thing, or 2) write it to use over and over again. This video shows you how to break down what your script needs to do, write individual Functions and Subs to do each thing, then steal those Functions and Subs for future scripts -- without rewriting anything!
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00:19:50 |
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WMI: Object Browser & Enumerating Computer Hardware
Now that you know syntax, it's time to start connecting to databases using VBScript -- starting with WMI. Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is a database on every Windows machine. It stores the hardware and software information about that machine. Learn how to use VBScript to ask WMI about a machine's hardware in a process called enumeration.
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00:22:18 |
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WMI: Files, Folders, and Query Constraints
Take your WMI skills a step further -- learn more about enumeration plus how to manipulate files and folders. Also discover how to improve the performance of your WMI queries by constraining them. This is important when you attempt to enumerate files and folders, because these are large WMI objects that will slow down your machine if you don't do a good job of constraining your queries.
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00:27:51 |
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WMI: The Registry
Modifying the registry is very similar to modifying other objects using WMI. In this nugget, you learn how to use WMI to view, update, and delete information in the registry. This nugget will specifically talk about how to update registry information in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
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00:25:27 |
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WMI: Services & Processes
Services and processes are the objects that keep our system performing useful work. Using WMI, we can enumerate and manipulate the services and running processes on our computers as well as create new services and processes. Discover what it takes to do both in this nugget.
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00:31:13 |
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ADSI: User, Computer, Group, & OU Objects
Active Directory is a crucial part of Windows Server networks -- and a part of your daily life as a Windows admin. The next two videos teach you how to make much of what you do with Active Directory automatic. Learn how to pull data from Active Directory using the Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI). Plus learn how to use VBScript to read and update Active Directory user, computer, and Organizational Unit (OU) objects.
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00:28:08 |
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ADSI: Moving, Renaming, and Searching for Objects
Knowing how to manipulate objects is only good if you can find those objects. This nugget expands on the last ADSI nugget by teaching you how to move, rename, and search for objects in Active Directory.
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00:24:10 |
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Databases
Once you know how to manipulate data inside databases like WMI and ADSI, you're close to knowing how to manipulate data in any database. In this nugget you'll learn how to use VBScript to connect to other databases -- using Microsoft SQL Server as an example. Discover how to pull data from a remote database plus update and delete information.
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00:25:35 |
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External Programs
VBScript is a powerful tool, but it doesn't stand alone. There are a lot of other tools out there to give VBScript even more power. Learn how to integrate outside programs into your custom scripts. This supercharges your ability to pull information out of your systems.
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00:23:12 |
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Capstone: Enterprise-wide HKEY_CURRENT_USER Update Script
The series ends with a bang in this Capstone video. Create a script that lets you update user-specific information for all user profiles on all systems on your network. This video takes you through step-by-step -- you'll come out on the other end with a large and complicated but very useful script. This leverages what you've learned through the entire series plus it'll give you inspiration for what else you can do. Best of all, you get to finish the series with a script that accomplishes exactly what you set out to do -- to do your job better.
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00:31:52 |
