Review

You've started learning how VBScript works in this chapter. In fact, you've learned about the three main parts of any script: functions and subroutines (which you now know aren't really that different from one another), objects, and variables.

Variables act as temporary storage areas for your data and allow your scripts to change their behavior and manipulate data. VBScript's built-in functions and statements provide the actual functionality of the language, whereas your own functions and subroutines extend VBScript's power to perform custom tasks.

Finally, objects represent the functionality of the Windows operating system and its many features and capabilities. Objects have properties, which govern their behavior, and methods, which perform actions. Administrative scripting is all about using VBScript functions and statements to tie together operating system objects. For example, you might use a file system object to manipulate files and folders or use the WMI objects to manipulate the registry.

COMING UP

In the next chapter, you'll learn how VBScript accepts input and displays messages, enabling you to create interactive scripts. Chapters 7 through 9 show you how to manipulate the data that your scripts work with. If you're anxious to start working with objects, jump to Chapter 11, which introduces some of VBScript's own built-in objects.