HTA Developers Center<\/B><\/A> is for.) VBScript doesn\u2019t have a native method for creating graphical user interfaces. That\u2019s a problem, but we can work around that problem by creating an HTA, and then calling that HTA from within our logon script.<\/P>\nAnd that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve done here: we\u2019ve created a .hta file, a file that we\u2019ll need to copy to each of our computers. (But that\u2019s no problem; your logon script can do that.) Inside our logon script we then need just two lines of code to pop up this HTA and, in turn, let users select a default printer:<\/P>
Set objShell = CreateObject(“Wscript.Shell”)\nobjShell.Run “C:\\Scripts\\Test.hta”\n<\/PRE>\nSo what will people see when this HTA pops up? They\u2019ll see \u2013 in all its barebones splendor \u2013 something that looks like this:<\/P>![\"HTA\"](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/pickprinter.jpg\")
\n
Yes, we know. But if you want beautiful you\u2019re on your own.<\/P>\n
Now that you understand the basic scenario let\u2019s take a closer look at the HTA itself. As far as the HTML tagging goes, well, there really isn\u2019t much: all we have is a list box named AvailablePrinters<\/I> (added to the HTA by using the <SELECT><\/B> tag) and a button (<INPUT TYPE = “BUTTON”><\/B>):<\/P><select size=”5″ name=”AvailablePrinters”><\/select><p>\n<input type=”button” value=”Set as Default” onClick=”SetDefault”>\n<\/PRE>\nThe idea here is that you select a printer from the list box and then click the button; upon doing so, the printer you selected will be configured as your default printer.<\/P>\n
That\u2019s right: just like magic.<\/P>\n
If you\u2019ve done much HTML tagging you probably noticed that, as configured, our list box is empty; it doesn\u2019t include a single installed printer. Why not? Well remember, that\u2019s the whole idea here: we need a dynamic list box, one that, each time the HTA starts, gets populated with the printers (and only those printers) installed on the computer in question. How do we propose to do that<\/I>? Why, by using this subroutine, of course:<\/P>Sub Window_Onload\n strComputer = “.”<\/p>\n Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:\\\\” & strComputer & “\\root\\cimv2”)\n Set colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery(“Select * From Win32_Printer”)<\/p>\n
For Each objPrinter in colPrinters\n strPrinter = objPrinter.Name\n Set objOption = Document.createElement(“OPTION”)\n objOption.Text = strPrinter\n objOption.Value = strPrinter\n AvailablePrinters.Add(objOption)\n Next\nEnd Sub\n<\/PRE>\n
This, needless to say, is a subroutine named Window_Onload<\/B>; in an HTA (or in a Web page) any subroutine with that name automatically runs whenever the HTA is opened or refreshed. Inside this subroutine, we first use this block of code to retrieve a collection of all the printers installed on the local computer:<\/P>strComputer = “.”<\/p>\nSet objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:\\\\” & strComputer & “\\root\\cimv2”)\nSet colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery(“Select * From Win32_Printer”)\n<\/PRE>\n
That was easy, wasn\u2019t it? The question now is this: what do we do<\/I> with this collection of printers?<\/P>\n
To begin with, we set up a For Each loop to loop through each printer in the collection. For each printer we grab the value of the Name<\/B> property and store it in a variable named strPrinter. We then run headlong into this<\/I> line of code:<\/P>Set objOption = Document.createElement(“OPTION”)\n<\/PRE>\nWhat we\u2019re doing here is creating an instance of the HTML Option<\/B> object; as the name implies, this object represents an individual option in a list box. After creating a \u201cblank\u201d option we then assign the printer name to the option\u2019s Text<\/B> and Value<\/B> properties:<\/P>objOption.Text = strPrinter\nobjOption.Value = strPrinter\n<\/PRE>\nIn case you\u2019re wondering, the Text property represents the actual text displayed in the list box; the Value property is, well, the value assigned to that option. For this particular list box we made the Text and Value identical, but they don\u2019t have to be. For example, suppose you had a list box that allowed people to select US states. You could set the Text of an option to Washington<\/I>; that way people would see the name Washington<\/I> in the list box. At the same time, however, you could set the value of that option to WA<\/I>. That way people would see a \u201cfriendly\u201d name in the list box, but you could still use the official postal abbreviation in your script.<\/P>\n
After we assign the property values we then call the Add<\/B> method and add the option (that is, the name of the first printer) to the list box:<\/P>AvailablePrinters.Add(objOption)\n<\/PRE>\nAnd then we repeat the process with the next printer in the collection.<\/P>\n
The Window_Onload subroutine populates our list box with the names of all the printers installed on the local computer. To make one of these printers the default printer we need to select a the printer from the list box and then click the Set as Default<\/B> button. Clicking the button causes the following subroutine to run:<\/P>Sub SetDefault\n strPrinter = AvailablePrinters.Value\n Set WshNetwork = CreateObject(“Wscript.Network”)\n WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter strPrinter\n Msgbox strPrinter & ” has been set as your default printer.”\nEnd Sub\n<\/PRE>\nAs you can see, we\u2019re not doing anything too-terribly fancy in this subroutine. To begin with, we grab the Value from the item selected in the list box and assign that to a variable named strPrinter:<\/P>
strPrinter = AvailablePrinters.Value\n<\/PRE>\nWe use these two lines of code to create an instance of the Wscript.Network<\/B> object and then call the SetDefaultPrinter<\/B> method in order to make the selected printer the default printer:<\/P>Set WshNetwork = CreateObject(“Wscript.Network”)\nWshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter strPrinter\n<\/PRE>\nAnd then, just for the heck of it, we display a message stating that the selected printer is now the default printer.<\/P>\n
And that\u2019s basically all we have to do. Admittedly we don\u2019t have any error-handling here and we don\u2019t have an obvious way for users to close the dialog box without choosing a new default printer. Likewise we could get a little fancier and, say, display the name of the current default printer in a different color. But look at it this way: if we did all<\/I> the work you might start to feel like no one needed you, and you might be tempted to jump off a bridge or throw yourself on a scrap heap. Which means that all these things we don\u2019t do are actually something we do for your own good.<\/P>\n
You\u2019re welcome.<\/P>\n
So which world problem will the Scripting Guys tackle next? Well, there\u2019s definitely no shortage of problems in the world. However, we have our sights fixed on the biggest one of all: those commercials aimed at male \u2026 dysfunctions \u2026. Although we try not to be prudish, well, have you ever seen<\/I> some of these commercials? Could you imagine meandering through a bookstore, just hoping to find a book, and instead stumbling upon \u2013 well, you know. Or trying to eat a sandwich in a restaurant only to look up and see two people \u2013 people old enough to know better \u2013 mauling each other? When is a moment the right moment? Trust is here: for some things, never<\/I>.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! In a logon script, how can I enable users to choose a default printer from a list of the printers installed on their computer?— JD Hey, JD. You know, a lot of people write in to say, \u201cHey, Scripting Guys! Why do you limit yourselves to system administration scripting? Don\u2019t you realize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[445,404,3,5],"class_list":["post-65133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-client-side-printing","tag-printing","tag-scripting-guy","tag-vbscript"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! In a logon script, how can I enable users to choose a default printer from a list of the printers installed on their computer?— JD Hey, JD. You know, a lot of people write in to say, \u201cHey, Scripting Guys! Why do you limit yourselves to system administration scripting? Don\u2019t you realize […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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