If you've written scripts for Internet Explorer or the Office applications, then you'll have a good idea of how WSH scripts are constructed - although there are plenty of differences to keep you on your toes!

Writing scripts for the WSH is not a trivial process - whatever language you use, scripting is ultimately about manipulating the properties and methods of objects exposed in the WSH object model, and in the object models of any applications you control. Even something as basic as writing a text file can involve creating a file object variable and calling two of its methods to save the file and store data in it. WSH scripting is totally different from writing MS-DOS batch files.

A knowledge of VBScript or JavaScript will put you 75% along the way to successful WSH scripting, but bear in mind that WSH properties and methods may not be same as the ones you're used to in, say, IE4.

For example, to pop up a message box in IE4, you might write this JavaScript statement:

alert("Hello World")

but in a JavaScript routine for use with the WSH, you'd say:

WScript.Echo("Hello World").

Another difference is that script files don't need the equivalent of a <SCRIPT tag or LANGUAGE identifier - the file name extension (.js or .vbs) tells WSH what language is used.

Here's a simple JScript (JavaScript) script which creates a new file in the current disk folder, and writes a line of text to it:

var created_date = new Date()
var fs = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
var a = fs.CreateTextFile("jstestfile.txt", "True")
a.WriteLine("This is a test file, written at "+created_date)
a.Close()

For details of the WSH object model and other WSH documentation, see Microsoft's scripting developer web site.