Get ready to roll up those shirtsleeves, pop the hood, and get a little Windows grime under those fingernails! This is a book about tools, nuts and bolts. Through lucid tutorials and examples, Windows XP Under the Hood shows how to use scripting and batch tools to automate repetitive tasks. You'll master the gory details of the automation, management, command-line and diagnostic tools that are often given short shrift in both online documentation and standard end-user books. Then, the detailed reference sections will keep you coming back time and again. This book will help you make the leap from accomplished user to bona fide Windows hero.Finally, a hardcore Windows book that digs into the XP interface while not putting the reader to sleep! Lively and written for Windows mechanics who live for more power.Learn how to create and deploy tools to manage your computers and networks. Here you'll find a straightforward introduction to scripting with VBScript, coverage of dozens of powerful programming and management objects, and from-the-trenches advice on distributing and managing your new toolkit.Learn how to master the Command Line. Many books cover Windows Script Host, but none of the others address the powerful and still-useful batch file language and command-line utilities.Clear, practical examples show how each scripting object, batch file or command line utility can change lives, make the dog behave, and eliminate bad hair days.Although Microsoft provides the tools, users are hard pressed to find much-if any-documentation on these tools. Rather than learning by osmosis, we suggest that you pick up a copy of this indispensable book.
User review
I've found it incredibly useful
I have found this book incredibly useful. Without it, I doubt I could have put together some sorely-needed processes such as a developer-friendly build for a large system with several VB6 components with complex interdependencies, communicating with .Net components via Interop, therefore regenerating wrappers on the fly. The options are controlled by an XML file that has quite a lot of backward references in it, necessitating recursion in the parsing, and VB script's regular expression support was handy as well. Unix people tend to be surprised at just how capable a non-object-oriented technology can be (well, there is support for objects in a limited way, but it's not like Java!)
Before I had this book I had never heard of WSC objects. What a nifty idea for the Windows environment: a source (script) code object, with methods and properties, that you can register and access like a DLL from your scripts. No compilation, no DLL hell.
Once you have the strong foundation in scripting principles that this book gives you, it is easy to add in topics that it doesn't cover. There's plenty of information on the Web about things like using ADO from VBscript, or HTA applications (a nice way to show a GUI display from a command-line script). Strongly recommended.
User review
Excellent book
As a Windows author myself I tend to be very demanding when I look for books about the Windows operating system. I was overly pleased with both the book's content and presentation. This book never even found my bookshelf. It has a permanent home on my desk.
User review
Great Technical Writer
Brian Knittel gets an A+ from me for being one of the most lucid technical writers I've ever read. I'm a social worker by day and a hobbyist at night who likes to tinker with the command-line. I have found the book easy to understand. Chapters are well laid out with ample reference sections. kudos!
User review
delivers
This book opened my eyes as to the command line power that Windows actually has. Unix user may turn up their noses but even they have to admit WSH is pretty cool and smashes some of the traditional stereotypes about Windows only being for the technically challenged. The book does a good job of preparing you to start scripting in an MS environment.
User review
Worth every cent you are going to spend
This book is perfect overview of VBScript and Scripting Windows XP. Author explains every aspect of Scripting without going into too much of details. Beginners will probably need additional info. But if you ask me nobody could do better job explaining of so many topics in one book. There are plenty examples you could use right away on the PC.
Thumbs up!!!
