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Wayback Machine To the Rescue!!

TechNet Home > Script Center > Scripting Tools

Scriptomatic 2.0: Readme

The world-famous Scriptomatic 2.0 is the utility that writes WMI scripts for you. Not only that, but it teaches you the fundamental concepts behind writing WMI scripts for yourself. If you’re new to Scriptomatic, you’ll definitely want to try it out and see what you’ve been missing. If you’re already familiar with Scriptomatic 1.0 you know how useful this tool can be. Version 2.0 is even better; it has a lot of new features, including the ability to create scripts in multiple scripting languages.

Download Scriptomatic 2.0 now! Oh, wait, you should read the rest of this first. There’s a lot of information in here—some of it is even helpful.

On This Page

	A Brief History Lesson
	The One-Hit Wonders of Scripting?
	Life as a Has-Been
	The Comeback
	Scriptomatic 2.0 Q & A
	New Features
	How to Use Scriptomatic 2.0
	Support (or Lack Thereof)
	Future Plans

 

Related Links • Download Scriptomatic 2.0

A Brief History Lesson

Throughout most of history people were much easier to please than they are now. For example, it’s unlikely that anyone ever went up to Luke the evangelist and said, “One Gospel? Come on, Luke. I mean, Matthew, Mark, John – anybody can write one Gospel.” Upon being introduced to someone at a cocktail party Neil Armstrong probably never had to hear, “Oh, first man on the moon? I see ….” Did anyone ever say to the Pharaoh Cheops, “Well, it’s a good pyramid, Cheops, but I don’t know about a great pyramid ….” Of course they didn’t.

Well, not if they knew what was good for them, anyway.

Today it’s a bit different: not only are people notoriously hard to please, but even if you do have a success there’s no guarantee that anyone will be satisfied. After all, nothing is worse than being labeled a one-trick pony, a one-hit wonder, or a flash-in-the-pan. We remember William Shakespeare, but only because he wrote hundreds of plays and sonnets. Who remembers the rock duo Mouth and McNeal? Nobody. And that’s because Mouth and McNeal had one hit song, and then were never heard from again. Stephen King will be remembered forever because of his prolific productivity, but does anyone out there have the slightest idea who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh?

Well, OK, it probably was Stephen King. Then what about – right, he probably wrote that, too. But you know what we mean.

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The One-Hit Wonders of Scripting?

Now, to be honest, we Microsoft Scripting Guys were never too concerned about being one-hit wonders; after all, you can’t be a one-hit wonder unless you first have a hit. We were sure nobody would ever hear of us, and somehow that seemed better than being remembered and then just as quickly forgotten. Remember baseball’s Joltin’ Joe Charboneau? Exactly.

But then we made a terrible mistake: we released the original Scriptomatic – the amazing utility that actually wrote WMI scripts for you – and it turned out to be a hit. That was not intentional, by the way. The Scriptomatic was originally thrown together when one of the Scripting Guys was looking for a socko-boffo ending for a WMI presentation he had to make for an internal Microsoft audience. Literally minutes before the presentation was to begin, he created something called the Scriptomatic, an HTA (HTML Application) that could write rudimentary WMI scripts. He showed off his new creation at the end of the talk, and the response was both overwhelming and unanimous; as noted in the official annals of the Scripting Guys, everyone in the room stood up as one and said, “Can we go now?” Not the most auspicious debut a piece of software has ever had, though it probably still tops the reception accorded Microsoft Bob.

Note. If you’re a Microsoft employee who liked Microsoft Bob, we’re just kidding. In fact, some of our best friends used Microsoft Bob.

Well, at least we think they did. It’s hard to get people to admit to something like that.

But back to our story. As it turned out, something weird happened when we released that same Scriptomatic on Microsoft.com: it became a hit, or at least as close to being a hit as any scripting-related utility will ever come. As of today, the Scriptomatic has been downloaded by nearly 500,000 people, a number which warms the cockles of our hearts, and also makes us wonder why we didn’t charge people $1 per download.

But while it was great that everyone found the Scriptomatic useful, its unexpected success put us in the position of being the computer world equivalent to Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Now we had to create a follow-up success of some kind. But what? The Beatles didn’t have to worry about being one-hit wonders because they were really good at what they did. Ernest Hemingway didn’t have to worry about being labeled a flash-in-the-pan; after all, he was good at what he did. But where did that leave the Microsoft Scripting Guys?

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Life as a Has-Been

We pondered this problem of being a one-hit wonder long and hard, for many, many months, and without much success. Not for lack of trying, mind you, but to be honest, most of our efforts were for naught. In retrospect, reading all our scripts out loud and recording them onto an MP3 player we called the scriptPod might not have been such a good idea after all. (Of course, it probably would have helped had we remembered to put a Play button on the scriptPod. And maybe we should have taken the rock group U2 up on their offer after all.)

Likewise, we probably should have tested the waters with a single Scriptbucks rather than blithely opening a chain of coffee houses across the country, all of them serving script-flavored lattes. (In our defense, a number of people have told us that the ADSI Mocha Fudge Delight wasn’t that bad as long as you added sugar and cinnamon, stirred well, spritzed a little whipped cream on top, and then poured the whole thing down the drain without drinking it. As an added bonus, it could unclog that drain in no time!)

And while we haven’t given up on our reality TV show, The Scripting Life, we are having problems getting either Paris Hilton or Nicole Ritchie to return our calls. (And thanks to various court orders, injunctions, and restraining orders, we’re no longer allowed to contact them.) Coming up with a follow-up success turned out to be much harder than we expected.

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The Comeback

But then one day, inspiration struck. It occurred to us that, instead of copying someone else’s ideas, we should do what we do best. And while we don’t do very many things well at all, there was one thing that we were good at: writing Scriptomatics. Therefore, the solution to our problem was obvious: if we had a hit with one Scriptomatic, then logically we’d have an even bigger hit if we released another Scriptomatic. It would be just like the Star Wars saga, only with scripts instead of light sabers.

 

Read "The Real Story of New Coke"

Actually, our original plan was to emulate the Coca-Cola company, which a few years back released New Coke, a product that met with almost universal disdain. Needless to say, things looked grim, but then some unsung genius at Coca Cola had a brainstorm: they suggested that the company do nothing more than bring back the old Coke, now christened Classic Coke. And guess what? It was a huge success! We figured, OK, we’ll do the same thing. We’ll write a piece of software that nobody likes and release it as New Scriptomatic. We’ll let people grumble and complain for awhile, and then we’ll bring back the old Scriptomatic (or Classic Scriptomatic) and everyone will love it! We’ll be heroes, and – best of all – we won’t have to do any work.

In the end, though, we decided to create a brand new version of the Scripotmatic, one that actually worked: Scriptomatic 2.0.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Bilgus