Running command line silently with VbScript and getting output

Question

I want to be able to run a program through command line and I want to start it with VbScript   I also want to get the output of the command line and assign it to a variable and I want all this to be done silently without cmd windows popping up   I have managed two things separately but not together  Here s what I got so far  Run the command from cmd and get output   Dim WshShell  oExec Set WshShell   WScript CreateObject  WScript Shell   Set oExec   WshShell Exec  C  snmpget -c public -v 2c 10 1 1 2  1 3 6 1 4 1 6798 3 1 1 1 5 1   x   oExec StdOut ReadLine Wscript Echo x   The above script works and does what I want except that cmd pops up for a brief moment    Here s a script that will run silently but won t grab the output  Set WshShell   WScript CreateObject  WScript Shell   Return   WshShell Run  C  snmpset -c public -v 2c -t 0 10 1 1 2  1 3 6 1 4 1 6798 3 1 1 1 7 1 i 1   0  true    Is there a way to get these two to work together   Let me give you a background on why I want do to this   I am basically polling a unit every 5-10 minutes and I am going to get the script to email or throw a message box when a certain condition occurs but I don t want to see cmd line popping up all day long on my computer  Any suggestions  Thanks

User · Answer

I have taken this and various other comments and created a bit more advanced function for running an application and getting the output.

Example to Call Function: Will output the DIR list of C:\ for Directories only. The output will be returned to the variable CommandResults as well as remain in C:\OUTPUT.TXT.

CommandResults = vFn_Sys_Run_CommandOutput("CMD.EXE /C DIR C:\ /AD",1,1,"C:\OUTPUT.TXT",0,1)

Function

Function vFn_Sys_Run_CommandOutput (Command, Wait, Show, OutToFile, DeleteOutput, NoQuotes)
'Run Command similar to the command prompt, for Wait use 1 or 0. Output returned and
'stored in a file.
'Command = The command line instruction you wish to run.
'Wait = 1/0; 1 will wait for the command to finish before continuing.
'Show = 1/0; 1 will show for the command window.
'OutToFile = The file you wish to have the output recorded to.
'DeleteOutput = 1/0; 1 deletes the output file. Output is still returned to variable.
'NoQuotes = 1/0; 1 will skip wrapping the command with quotes, some commands wont work
'                if you wrap them in quotes.
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  On Error Resume Next
  'On Error Goto 0
    Set f_objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
    Set f_objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
      'VARIABLES
        If OutToFile = "" Then OutToFile = "TEMP.TXT"
        tCommand = Command
        If Left(Command,1)<>"""" And NoQuotes <> 1 Then tCommand = """" & Command & """"
        tOutToFile = OutToFile
        If Left(OutToFile,1)<>"""" Then tOutToFile = """" & OutToFile & """"
        If Wait = 1 Then tWait = True
        If Wait <> 1 Then tWait = False
        If Show = 1 Then tShow = 1
        If Show <> 1 Then tShow = 0
      'RUN PROGRAM
        f_objShell.Run tCommand & ">" & tOutToFile, tShow, tWait
      'READ OUTPUT FOR RETURN
        Set f_objFile = f_objFso.OpenTextFile(OutToFile, 1)
          tMyOutput = f_objFile.ReadAll
          f_objFile.Close
          Set f_objFile = Nothing
      'DELETE FILE AND FINISH FUNCTION
        If DeleteOutput = 1 Then
          Set f_objFile = f_objFso.GetFile(OutToFile)
            f_objFile.Delete
            Set f_objFile = Nothing
          End If
        vFn_Sys_Run_CommandOutput = tMyOutput
        If Err.Number <> 0 Then vFn_Sys_Run_CommandOutput = "<0>"
        Err.Clear
        On Error Goto 0
      Set f_objFile = Nothing
      Set f_objShell = Nothing
  End Function

User · Answer

You can redirect output to a file and then read the file   return   WshShell Run  cmd  c C  snmpset -c      gt  c  temp output txt   0  true   Set fso    CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject   Set file   fso OpenTextFile  c  temp output txt   1  text   file ReadAll file Close

User · Answer

Look for assigning the output to Clipboard  in your first script  and then in second script parse Clipboard value

User · Answer

Dim path As String   GetFolderPath SpecialFolder ApplicationData   Dim filepath As String   path          your bat        Create the file if it does not exist       If File Exists filepath    False Then         File Create filepath      Else     End If     Dim attributes As FileAttributes     attributes   File GetAttributes filepath      If  attributes And FileAttributes ReadOnly    FileAttributes ReadOnly Then           Remove from Readonly the file          attributes   RemoveAttribute attributes  FileAttributes ReadOnly          File SetAttributes filepath  attributes          Console WriteLine  The  0  file is no longer RO    filepath      Else     End If     If  attributes And FileAttributes Hidden    FileAttributes Hidden Then           Show the file          attributes   RemoveAttribute attributes  FileAttributes Hidden          File SetAttributes filepath  attributes          Console WriteLine  The  0  file is no longer Hidden    filepath      Else     End If     Dim sr As New StreamReader filepath      Dim input As String   sr ReadToEnd       sr Close       Dim output As String     echo off      Dim output1 As String   vbNewLine    your 1st cmd code      Dim output2 As String   vbNewLine    your 2nd cmd code       Dim output3 As String   vbNewLine    exit      Dim sw As New StreamWriter filepath      sw Write output      sw Write output1      sw Write output2      sw Write output3      sw Close       If  attributes And FileAttributes Hidden    FileAttributes Hidden Then     Else           Hide the file          File SetAttributes filepath  File GetAttributes filepath  Or FileAttributes Hidden          Console WriteLine  The  0  file is now hidden    filepath      End If     Dim procInfo As New ProcessStartInfo path          your bat       procInfo WindowStyle   ProcessWindowStyle Minimized     procInfo WindowStyle   ProcessWindowStyle Hidden     procInfo CreateNoWindow   True     procInfo FileName   path          your bat      procInfo Verb    runas      Process Start procInfo    it saves your  bat file to  Appdata of current user   if it does not exist and remove the attributes  and after that set the  hidden  attributes to file after writing your cmd code  and run it silently and capture all output saves it to file  so if u wanna save all output of cmd to file just add your like this  code  gt  C  Users Lenovo Desktop output txt   just replace word  code  with your  bat file code or command and after that the directory of output file I found one code recently after searching alot  if u wanna run  bat file in vb or c  or simply  just add this in the same manner in which i have written

User · Answer

Mark Cidade  Thanks Mark  This solved few days of research on wondering how should I call this from the PHP WshShell  So thanks to your code  I figured     function   exec  tmppath   cmd        WshShell   new COM  WScript Shell        tmpf   rand 1000  9999    tmp      Temp file     tmpfp    tmppath      tmpf     Full path to tmp file      oExec    WshShell- gt Run  cmd  c  cmd -c      gt     tmpfp  0  true          return  oExec    0   true   false     Return True False after exec    return  tmpf      This is what worked for me in my case  Feel free to use and modify as per your needs  You can always add functionality within the function to automatically read the tmp file  assign it to a variable and or return it and then delete the tmp file  Thanks again  Mark

User · Answer

I am pretty new to all of this  but I found that if the script is started via CScript exe  console scripting host  there is no window popping up on exec    so when running    cscript myscript vbs   nologo   any  Exec   calls in the myscript vbs do not open an extra window  meaning that you can use the first variant of your original solution  using exec     Note that the two forward slashes in the above code are intentional  see cscript

[command-line] Running command line silently with VbScript and getting output?

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