Showing results for November 2005 - Page 2 of 4 - Scripting Blog [archived]

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I lock a workstation after five minutes of inactivity, something recommended to us by our auditors?-- NM Hey, NM. To tell you the truth, we don’t know. Locking a computer remotely can be a bit of a problem; for more information on that, take a look at one of our columns from a year ago. On top of that, you face the pr...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I verify that ADAM is installed?-- CW Hey, CW. Although former President Ronald Reagan is usually given credit for the phrase “Trust but verify,” we’ve always thought that sounded more like the sort of thing a system administrator would say: “Of course I trust you when you say you installed ADAM on that computer. I ju...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I import a fixed-width file into Microsoft Excel?-- JP Hey, JP. We have a confession to make here, something we’re terribly ashamed of: for a moment - just for a moment, mind you - we doubted Microsoft Excel. Yes, we know: how could we do such a thing? All we can say is that we made a mistake, and we’re sorry. For som...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Awhile back you showed us a method to determine the height and width of a picture file. However, that solution required us to import all our picture files into Windows Media Player. Isn’t there another way to get this information, one that doesn’t require Windows Media Player?-- RP Hey, RP. You see, that’s what happens any ti...

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a fixed-width text file which includes first name (6 characters), last name (13 characters), and department (9 characters) all on a single line. How do I read that using ADO?-- DW Hey, DW. Well, to be perfectly honest, we don’t think you can read a file like this using ADO (ActiveX Data Objects). ADO is a fantastic way...