The Do-It-Yourself Script Center Kit
If you’re anything like a large percentage of the Script Center’s audience, you were initially attracted to scripting because you’re the do-it-yourself type. As a kid, you likely eschewed the fancy playhouse purchased by your parents in favor of building your own fort in the backyard. As an adult, maybe you brew your own beer or make your own wine, even though it’s faster, easier, and cheaper to drive down to the grocery store and pick up some beer or wine there. Things just seem better when you do them yourself.
Being a do-it-yourselfer is both fun and fulfilling, but the true do-it-yourselfer is never completely satisfied. Sure, you built your own deck, and you make all your own clothes, and that’s great. But there's one thing you've always wanted to do but have never been able to: build your own Script Center.
On This Page
 | What Is It? |
| What Can I Do With It? |
| What About Product Support? |
Related Links
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Download the Do-It-Yourself Script Center Kit
What Is It?
The Do-It-Yourself Script Center Kit is the Holy Grail of the do-it-yourself set, and just like the real Holy Grail it’s always been out of reach. “I’d love to build my own Script Center,” you’ve probably thought, “but I’ll never get the chance. After all, the Script Center is the crown jewel of Microsoft; no doubt they keep the secret formula for building the Script Center under 24-hour guard. There’s no way Microsoft would let someone like me get their hands on the Script Center.”
Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Prepare for the shock of your life: the Microsoft Scripting Guys have released the Do-It-Yourself Script Center Script Kit.
That’s OK, go ahead and cry; it’s an emotional moment for all of us.
If you’ve ever wanted your own personalized Script Center, or if you’ve ever said to yourself, “Those Scripting Guys, what a bunch of losers. Now if I was building the Script Center, I’d …” well, here’s your chance. Download the Do-It-Yourself Script Center Kit, and you’ll get all this:
| • | A Microsoft Access database containing all the scripts found in the Script Center, along with a brief description, supported platforms, the categorization scheme used to build the Script Center, and much, much more. |
| • | Sample scripts that allow you to create stand-alone .vbs files for any or all of the scripts in the Script Center. Tired of copying a script from a Web page, pasting it into Notepad, and then saving it as a .vbs file? Good news: those days are gone. |
| • | Sample scripts that allow you to create stand-alone HTML files for any or all of the scripts in the Script Center. Want to create you own Web site featuring the Script Center scripts? Now’s your chance. |
| • | Sample scripts that allow you to create your own .chm help file, using only the scripts that you want to use. |
| • | Semi-complete instructions on how to perform all these tasks. |
What Can I Do With It?
No doubt a few of you went ahead and downloaded the Kit and are only now asking yourselves, “Um, why exactly would I want to build my own Script Center?” Well, there’s a good chance that you don’t. However, some people are reluctant to visit Microsoft.com every time they need a script; others have firewall settings or other security restrictions that prevent them from venturing out on the Internet. For people like that, it might make sense to replicate the Script Center Script Repository on their own network.
To be honest, however, simply putting up your very own copy of the Script Repository is probably the least interesting thing you can do with the Do-It-Yourself Kit. A slightly more interesting task might be to take only the Script Center scripts that interest you, arrange them in a manner that makes sense for your organization, mix in a few of your own scripts, and then post those Web pages on your network. Now you have something truly useful, and customized to meet your needs.
Added bonus: For various technical reasons, you can’t – at least at the moment – do a full-text search of the Script Center scripts. But there’s nothing to prevent you from implementing full-text searching on your version of the Script Repository.
Another useful endeavor might be to simply export all the scripts to .vbs files; that way, the next time you need a script you’ll just have it, without going through the whole copy-and-paste routine. We’ve added a Copy to Clipboard button to the latest version of the Portable Script Center, and that definitely makes it easier to copy a handful of scripts. However, we’re not sure it makes it that much easier to copy 300 or 400 scripts. So why not just export them all and be done with it?
And speaking of the Portable Script Center (the downloadable .chm file), this is where we believe the Do-It-Yourself Kit might be particularly useful. The .chm format is a handy way to transport a large number of scripts, but as the Script Repository gets bigger and bigger that means the Portable Script Center also gets bigger and bigger. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just means that you might find yourself wading through a large number of scripts that aren’t of interest to you or might not apply to you. “Gee,” you might find yourself thinking, “It sure would be nice if I had a .chm file that had only the IIS 5.1 scripts; then I could just give that to my IIS guys.” Or maybe, “There are nine billion scripts in here, but only a few hundred will work on my NT 4.0 machines. I sure wish I had a .chm file that had only scripts that work on NT 4.0.”
Of course, maybe you think the Scripting Guys are going to create customized .chm files for everyone.Let’s be serious it takes us a year just to create one .chm file. But now you don’t have to rely on the Scripting Guys (always a good strategy, by the way); now you can create your own custom .chm files. And that’s very cool.
Another added bonus: For reasons known only to the Scripting Guys, the latest version of the Portable Script Center doesn’t include any of the new scripts written in Python, Perl, JScript, Kixtart, and Object REXX. However, the Do-It-Yourself Kit’s database does include these scripts. Would you like a .chm file of Kixtart scripts? Hey, who’s stopping you? OK, maybe that big, mean-looking guy over there, but not us, that’s for sure.
What About Product Support?
There are probably millions of other things you can do with the Do-It-Yourself Script Center Kit; the truth is, you guys are much smarter and much more clever than we are. (After all, the only thing we Scripting Guys have going for us is the Script Center, and now we’re giving that away to anyone who wants one!) Download the Kit and have at it. Just remember that – as usual – the Do-It-Yourself Kit and anything you might generate from it (standalone .vbs files, Web pages, etc.) are to be used at your own risk. If you find a bug in one of the scripts please let us know; beyond that, however, there’s no support offered. If you’d like to change the generated Web pages so that your company logon appears on them, that’s perfectly fine with us, but you’re on your own for that.
Besides, if we did everything for you then it wouldn’t really be a Do-It-Yourself Kit, would it?
Feel free to use the Kit and the generated information any way you wish. And if you do something really cool with it, let us know (scripter@microsoft.com); we’d love to hear how people are using the scripts and the database, and we’d like to know what we could include in the next version.