I have very little invested in AutoIT, but I agree – it’s an extremely impressive language and toolset. It’s pretty crazy how deep you can get – and only if you want to. I encourage everyone to spend at least 10 min looking at it. The GUI automation abilities have really saved us in some tough spots and with only a couple hours of learning.
Daniel Wolf From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Isaac Holmes Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 10:41 AM To: scripting@lists.myitforum.com Subject: Re: [scripting] To WinBatch or not? Can't speak to WinBatch, but the reason you mention of the required DLLs is one of the reasons why I've used AutoIt for various things from 3 lines scripts that replace a file with a file embedded in the EXE to a 50000 line script with a complicated GUI that reimages a machine. AutoIt runs in WinPE as wells as every full Windows OS without any additions. I don't have to worry about what version of Powershell or .Net is on the end user machine. So far I have not found anything that I can do in Powershell, vb/cscript, that I can't do in AutoIt It all depends upon the situation and what end product/result is wanted and where and by whom it will be used. Unlike the built in scripting options it handles UAC elevation with a single click. Isaac On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Daniel Ratliff <dratl...@humana.com<mailto:dratl...@humana.com>> wrote: Good info Ryan, thanks. I got into it with a tech here who says WinBatch is perfectly suitable to use for some IT developed apps that go on all workstations. I was arguing otherwise, primarily around the issues of required .DLLs and that they are dropping them in c:\windows. I didn’t really think WinBatch was enterprise suitable, but it honestly sounds like it can be. Daniel Ratliff From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com<mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com> [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com<mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com>] On Behalf Of Ryan Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 11:13 AM To: scripting@lists.myitforum.com<mailto:scripting@lists.myitforum.com> Subject: Re: [scripting] To WinBatch or not? I worked for a Fortune 500 company that required all apps be wrapped in a WinBatch script and that script was what ConfigMgr used. Their positives with WinBatch: 1) It's a small company so they have more pull at getting bugs and features fixed / added 2) It's not easy to learn, so it makes it difficult to send that work to their consulting firm in India who has high turnover 3) They already invested in it, and all their packagers knew it, so why not? I kept trying to get them to switch to Powershell, but left before I could. I highly doubt they would have switched, but I was going to keep trying as long as I worked there! This was less than a year ago. In terms of using WinBatch as an install wrapper, I always found features I needed. I don't know how well it would work to do other tasks administrators need to do, but it works well to simply install something. It can get pretty complex though. With all the logging and standards this company required, a simple MSI install script had a few hundred lines of code. Why did you search online to see what people think of WinBatch? Slow Friday? On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Daniel Ratliff <dratl...@humana.com<mailto:dratl...@humana.com>> wrote: I have always had a low opinion of winbatch. I kind of thought of it as a ‘toy’ scripting language, much like AutoIT. It has its place, but should not be used for critical applications and automation needs. I decided to search online today and WOW, it seems I am the only one who thinks this? Thoughts? Daniel Ratliff The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain CONFIDENTIAL material. If you receive this material/information in error, please contact the sender and delete or destroy the material/information. The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain CONFIDENTIAL material. If you receive this material/information in error, please contact the sender and delete or destroy the material/information. -- Isaac Holmes Client Engineering Specialist University of Notre Dame 320 IT Center Notre Dame, IN 46556 (574) 631-3254
