Script Tips

Run with It

Essential redux: Use VBScript to run a command-line tool and capture its output.

• By Don Jones
• 03/13/2006

The script is pretty straightforward, and uses the WshShell object to do its work:

'The trick is to use the WshShell object's Exec, 'not Run, method
Dim objShell, objExec
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

'run the command-line command - just as you'd type it
'into Start | Run. Avoid running Cmd.Exe directly, because it
'doesn't actually return any output itself.
Set objExec = objShell.Exec("dir")

'objExec now represents the executing command. Our script
'doesn't exactly wait for that to finish, but we can
'keep in touch with it. objExec is an instance of the
'WshScriptExec object, if you want to read the docs on it

'we can wait for it to finish running
Do Until objExec.Status = 1
   WScript.Sleep 100
Loop

'we can get the exit code (note that this method
'isn't in the WSH Type Library so it doesn't show up
'in a lot of object browsers or code hinting menus,
'but it should work on the latest version of WSH)
WScript.Echo "Exited with " & objExec.ExitCode

'here's where we get the output into a string var
Dim strOutput
If Not objExec.StdOut.AtEndOfStream Then
   strOutput = strOutput & objExec.StdOut.Read(1)
End If
WScript.Echo strOutput

Once you’ve got that strOutput variable, use InStr() to see if it contains some word or phrase that you’re interested in. Before the Win32_PingStatus WMI class came out in Windows XP/2003, you could use this trick to run the Ping.exe command, and then check to see if the results contained “Reply from,” which told you that the computer you pinged was reachable.