Scripting Blog

A place to learn about PowerShell and share stories of automation

Hey, Scripting Guy! How Can I Present a Dialog Box that Allows Users to Rename Files?

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I present users with a dialog box that enables them to rename a file? Ideally I’d like this to be in a loop of some kind, so that they could rename multiple files without having to restart the script.-- ER Hey, ER. Before we begin today we’d like to note that on this date, way back in 1854, American ...

How Can I Show Users a Dialog Box That Only Lets Them Select Folders?

Hey, Scripting Guy! In previous columns you’ve shown us how to present users with a dialog box that enables them to select files. Is there any way to show them a dialog box that only lets users select folders?-- LP Hey, LP. You know, you’ve come to the right place: the Scripting Guys have just what the doctor ordered. Actually, we have ...

How Can I Display More Than 1,023 Characters in a Custom Message Box?

Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to create a custom alert box that has over 1,000 characters in it. The message box used by Wscript.Echo can hold all the characters, but I can’t change the message box title. I can change the title of a message box used by the VBscript MsgBox function, but it won’t hold all my characters. Can you help?-- KB ...

How Can I Automatically Dismiss a Message Box After a Specified Length of Time?

Hey, Scripting Guy! I’d like to display a Yes/No message box for a few seconds and then, if no one clicks a button, have the message box disappear and the script perform the default operation. How do I do that?-- JR Hey, JR. Sounds like you need the WSH Shell object and the Popup method. Popup works a lot like the VBScript Msgbox function...

How Can I Use a Multi-Select Dialog Box in a Script?

Hey, Scripting Guy! Awhile back you showed us how to use a File Open dialog box in our scripts. At the same time you said you’d show us how to use a multi-select dialog box. Did you just forget about the multi-select dialog box?-- AA Hey, AA. Yes, we … forgot … about the multi-select dialog box. (Saying we forgot sounds better than ...