How to run VBScript from command line without Cscript Wscript

Question

I am a beginner in VBScript  I googled it  amp  got to know that we can run VBScript from command line by executing below command   For Example my vbscript name is Converter vbs  amp  it s present in folder D  VBS   I can run it through following methods   CScript  D  VBS Converter vbs    OR  WScript  D  VBS Converter vbs    Now I would like to execute above VBScript without Cscript or Wscript command by simply typing the name of VBscript name i e  Converter   I DON T WANT TO SPECIFY THE FULL PATH OF VBSCRIPT EVERYTIME   Can anyone please guide me on how to do that

User · Answer

You may follow the following steps    Open your CMD Command Prompt  Type  D   and hit Enter  Example  C  Users  Your User Name  gt D  Type  CD VBS  and hit Enter  Example  D  gt CD VBS Type  Converter vbs  or  start Converter vbs  and hit Enter  Example  D  VBS gt Converter vbs Or D  VBS gt start Converter vbs

User · Answer

I ll break this down in to several distinct parts  as each part can be done individually   I see the similar answer  but I m going to give a more detailed explanation here     First part  in order to avoid typing  CScript   or  WScript    you need to tell Windows how to launch a    vbs script file  In My Windows 8  I cannot be sure all these commands work exactly as shown here in older Windows  but the process is the same  even if you have to change the commands slightly   launch a console window  aka  command prompt   or aka  incorrectly   dos prompt   and type  assoc  vbs   That should result in a response such as   C  Windows System32 gt assoc  vbs  vbs VBSFile   Using that  you then type  ftype VBSFile   which should result in a response of   C  Windows System32 gt ftype VBSFile vbsfile   SystemRoot  System32 WScript exe    1       -OR-  C  Windows System32 gt ftype VBSFile vbsfile   SystemRoot  System32 CScript exe    1       If these two are already defined as above  your Windows  is already set up to know how to launch a    vbs file   BTW  WScript and CScript are the same program  using different names  WScript launches the script as if it were a GUI program  and CScript launches it as if it were a command line program  See other sites and or documentation for these details and caveats    If either of the commands did not respond as above  or similar responses  if the file type reported by assoc and or the command executed as reported by ftype have different names or locations   you can enter them yourself   C  Windows System32 gt assoc  vbs VBSFile   -and or-  C  Windows System32 gt ftype vbsfile   SystemRoot  System32 WScript exe    1       You can also type  help assoc  or  help ftype  for additional information on these commands  which are often handy when you want to automatically run certain programs by simply typing a filename with a specific extension   Be careful though  as some file extensions are specially set up by Windows or programs you may have installed so they operate correctly  Always check the currently assigned values reported by assoc ftype and save them in a text file somewhere in case you have to restore them    Second part  avoiding typing the file extension when typing the command from the console window   Understanding how Windows  and the CMD EXE program  finds commands you type is useful for this  and the next  part  When you type a command  let s use  querty  as an example command  the system will first try to find the command in it s internal list of commands  via settings in the Windows  registry for the system itself  or programmed in in the case of CMD EXE   Since there is no such command  it will then try to find the command in the current  PATH  environment variable  In older versions of DOS Windows  CMD EXE  and or COMMAND COM  would automatically add the file extensions   bat     exe     com  and possibly   cmd  to the command name you typed  unless you explicitly typed an extension  such as  querty bat  to avoid running  querty exe  by mistake   In more modern Windows  it will try the extensions listed in the  PATHEXT  environment variable  So all you have to do is add  vbs to  PATHEXT   For example  here s my  PATHEXT    C  Windows System32 gt set pathext PATHEXT  PLX  PLW  PL  BAT  CMD  VBS  COM  EXE  VBE  JS  JSE  WSF  WSH  MSC  PY   Notice that the extensions MUST include the      are separated by      and that  VBS is listed AFTER  CMD  but BEFORE  COM  This means that if the command processor  CMD EXE  finds more than one match  it ll use the first one listed  That is  if I have query cmd  querty vbs and querty com  it ll use querty cmd   Now  if you want to do this all the time without having to keep setting  PATHEXT   you ll have to modify the system environment  Typing it in a console window only changes it for that console window session  I ll leave this process as an exercise for the reader   -P  Third part  getting the script to run without always typing the full path  This part  in relation to the second part  has been around since the days of DOS  Simply make sure the file is in one of the directories  folders  for you Windows  folk   listed in the  PATH  environment variable  My suggestion is to make your own directory to store various files and programs you create or use often from the console window command prompt  that is  don t worry about doing this for programs you run from the start menu or any other method   only the console window  Don t mess with programs that are installed by Windows or an automated installer unless you know what you re doing    Personally  I always create a  C  sys bat  directory for batch files  a  C  sys bin  directory for    exe and    com files  for example  if you download something like  md5sum   a MD5 checksum utility   a  C  sys wsh  directory for VBScripts  and JScripts  named  wsh  because both are executed using the  Windows Scripting Host   or  wsh  program   and so on  I then add these to my system  PATH  variable  Control Panel -  Advanced System Settings -  Advanced tab -  Environment Variables button   so Windows can always find them when I type them   Combining all three parts will result in configuring your Windows system so that anywhere you can type in a command-line command  you can launch your VBScript by just typing it s base file name  You can do the same for just about any file type extension  As you probably saw in my  PATHEXT  output  my system is set up to run Perl scripts   PLX  PLW  PL  and Python   PY  scripts as well   I also put  C  sys bat C  sys scripts C  sys wsh C  sys bin  at the front of my  PATH   and put various batch files  script files  et cetera  in these directories  so Windows can always find them  This is also handy if you want to  override  some commands  Putting the    bat files first in the path makes the system find them before the    exe files  for example  and then the    bat file can launch the actual program by giving the full path to the actual    exe file  Check out the various sites on  batch file programming  for details and other examples of the power of the command line   It isn t dead yet    One final note  DO check out some of the other sites for various warnings and caveats  This question posed a script named  converter vbs   which is dangerously close to the command  convert exe   which is a Windows program to convert your hard drive from a FAT file system to a NTFS file system   Something that can clobber your hard drive if you make a typing mistake   On the other hand  using the above techniques you can insulate yourself from such mistakes  too  Using CONVERT EXE as an example   Rename it to something like  REAL CONVERT EXE   then create a file like  C  sys bat convert bat  which contains    ECHO OFF ECHO  DANGER   DANGER   DANGER   DANGER  WILL ROBINSON   ECHO This command will convert your hard drive to NTFS  DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS   ECHO PRESS CONTROL-C TO ABORT  otherwise    REM  PAUSE  will pause the batch file with the message  Press any key to continue      REM and also allow the user to press CONTROL-C which will prompt the user to abort or REM continue running the batch file  PAUSE  ECHO Okay  if you re really determined to do this  type this command  ECHO      SystemRoot  SYSTEM32 REAL CONVERT EXE ECHO to run the real CONVERT EXE program  Have a nice day    You can also use CHOICE EXE in modern Windows to make the user type  y  or  n  if they really want to continue  and so on   Again  the power of batch  and scripting  files   Here s some links to some good resources on how to use all this power   http   ss64 com   http   www computerhope com batch htm  http   commandwindows com batch htm  http   www robvanderwoude com batchfiles php  Most of these sites are geared towards batch files  but most of the information in them applies to running any kind of batch     bat  file  command     cmd  file  and scripting     vbs     js     pl     py  and so on  files

User · Answer

I am wondering why you cannot put this in a batch file  Example   cd D  VBS  WSCript Converter vbs   Put the above code in a text file and save the text file with  bat extension  Now you have to simply run this  bat file

User · Answer

Why don t you just stash the vbscript in a batch vbscript file hybrid  Name the batch hybrid Converter bat and you can execute it directly as Converter from the cmd line  Sure you can default ALL scripts to run from Cscript or Wscript  but if you want to execute your vbs as a windows script rather than a console script  this could cause some confusion later on  So just set your code to a batch file and run it directly    Check the answer -  Here  And here is an example    Converter bat      VBS Batch Hybrid     --- Batch portion --------- rem   amp  echo off rem   amp call   sub rem   amp exit  b    sub rem   amp echo begin batch rem   amp cscript   nologo   e vbscript    f0  rem   amp echo end batch rem   amp exit  b   ----- VBS portion ----- Dim tester tester    Convert data here  Msgbox tester

User · Answer

When entering the script s full file spec or its filename on the command line  the shell will use information accessibly by  assoc   grep -i vbs  vbs VBSFile  ftype   grep -i vbs VBSFile  SystemRoot  System32 CScript exe   1       to decide which program to run for the script  In my case it s cscript exe  in yours it will be wscript exe - that explains why your WScript Echos result in MsgBoxes   As   cscript    Usage  CScript scriptname extension  option      arguments      Options     B         Batch mode  Suppresses script errors and prompts from displaying    D         Enable Active Debugging    E engine  Use engine for executing script    H CScript Changes the default script host to CScript exe    H WScript Changes the default script host to WScript exe  default     I         Interactive mode  default  opposite of   B     Job xxxx  Execute a WSF job    Logo      Display logo  default     Nologo    Prevent logo display  No banner will be shown at execution time    S         Save current command line options for this user    T nn      Time out in seconds   Maximum time a script is permitted to run    X         Execute script in debugger    U         Use Unicode for redirected I O from the console   shows  you can use   E and   S to permanently switch your default host to cscript exe    If you are so lazy that you don t even want to type the extension  make sure that the PATHEXT environment variable  set   grep -i vbs PATHEXT  COM  EXE  BAT  CMD  VBS  VBE  JS  JSE  WSF  WSH  py  pyw  tcl  PSC1   contains  VBS and there is no Converter cmd  that converts your harddisk into a washing machine  in your path   Update wrt comment   If you  don t want to specify the full path of my vbscript everytime  you may    put your CONVERTER VBS in a folder that is included in the PATH environment variable  the shell will then search all pathes - if necessary taking the PATHEXT and the ftype assoc info into account - for a matching  executable   put a CONVERTER BAT  CMD into a path directory that contains a line like cscript p  ath to CONVERTER VBS   In both cases I would type out the extension to avoid  nasty  surprises

[vbscript] How to run VBScript from command line without Cscript/Wscript

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