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Having worked in the Information Technology field for ten years I am often amazed at how many manually run processes you find in almost any organization. Data entry is a big one, so are other things like file transfers and login scripts for users. The good news is that many day to day administrative tasks can be put on virtual auto pilot by utilizing one of the many different scripting tools at your disposal.

To get started writing scripts you can use the good old fashioned command prompt, or batch files, VisualBasic script or the up and coming PowerShell. And by the way the command prompt type scripts have come a long way since the old DOS days and have many more features and abilities now that make them very powerful tools. If you are a web developer or come from a Linux background you can even use scripting languages like Perl on Windows systems.

Aside from Perl my most essential and easy to use scripts are batch scripts that utilize tools like the windows management interface console. I like these scripts so much because they handle a lot of the day to day administrative tasks needed to keep an IT department functioning smoothly. I can automate tasks like drive mapping, security configuration, file permissions and more transparently in the background with simply bat file scripts.

I even have a handy utility script for searching out and destroying those pesky toolbars and other intrusive minute-by-minute weather applications people love to install on there systems. I simply fire it up and let it handle removing the intrusive programs automatically in the background from the comfort of my workstation and without the users ever knowing about it.

To create a batch file all you do is enter the shell commands into a plain text file using notepad or your favorite editing program. Then simply save the file with an extension of bat, Windows will then automatically recognize the file as a script and execute it when opened. Some of the commands you are likely to use are net use, for mapping network drives. To make changes to access control lists and user permissions at a very granular level you could utilize the command cacls.

Sometimes you will also want to log results or pipe it. The way to pipe the results from a command is using the ‘>’ character. A simple example would be ‘dir > file.txt’ would dump the results of the directory listing command into a plain text file named file.txt. Once you master piping you can also then parse and manipulate these data files opening the door to some truly powerful scripting tools and utilities to handle a variety of tasks.

So there you have it. Just following these simple steps you can start solving your Windows network management headaches and automating many processes that are currently done manually by just using a few good scripting tools. The best part is that these tools you create are pretty much installed on your system out of the box and ready to go. So get going.

John Andersen has been in the information technology field for ten years, is a published author and creator of the Turbo Windows Scripting system. Discover how you can make your job easier by visiting Robotic IT and automating your IT tasks.