strComputer = “.”\nSet objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:\\\\” & strComputer & “\\root\\cimv2”)<\/p>\nSet colFolders = objWMIService. _\n ExecQuery(“Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\Scripts'”)<\/p>\n
For Each objFolder in colFolders\n Wscript.Echo “Hidden: ” & objFolder.Hidden\nNext\n<\/PRE>\n
Notice in our WQL query that single quote marks are used to indicate the name of the folder we want to connect to:<\/P>
Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\Scripts\n<\/PRE>\nThat\u2019s one of the jobs of a single quote mark: it delineates string values within a WQL query.<\/P>\n
Now let\u2019s take a look at a script that doesn\u2019t<\/I> work, one that tries to connect to a folder named C:\\Ken Myer\u2019s Folder<\/B>:<\/P>strComputer = “.”\nSet objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts!\\\\” & strComputer & “\\root\\cimv2”)<\/p>\nSet colFolders = objWMIService. _\n ExecQuery(“Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\Ken Myer\u2019s Folder”)<\/p>\n
For Each objFolder in colFolders\n Wscript.Echo “Hidden: ” & objFolder.Hidden\nNext\n<\/PRE>\n
If you run this script, you\u2019ll get an error. That\u2019s because of the apostrophe in Myer\u2019s<\/B>. Because apostrophes are used to delineate the beginning and ending of strings, the script thinks this<\/I> is our WQL query:<\/P>Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\Ken Myer’\n<\/PRE>\nSee? It hits the apostrophe and thinks the query is complete. It then encounters the rest of the folder name —\u2019s Folder<\/B> – and has no idea what to do; after all, that\u2019s not valid VBScript or WMI code. And so the script fails.<\/P>\n
So can we work around this problem? Yep. All we need to do is \u201cescape\u201d the apostrophe in Myer\u2019s<\/B>. When you escape a character you essentially tell the script, \u201cLook, the next character coming up is one of your reserved characters, but I don\u2019t want you to use it as a reserved character; I want you to use it- in this case – as a plain old apostrophe.\u201d To escape a reserved character in a WQL query, we just insert a \\<\/B> in front of that character. In other words:<\/P>\n
Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\Ken Myer\\’s Folder\u2019<\/P>\n
Yes, it looks weird, but it works. What if we had a folder name like O\u2019Hara\u2019s Folder, one that has two<\/I> apostrophes? In that case you just need to escape each apostrophe, like so:<\/P>Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\O\\\u2019Hara\\\u2019s Folder\u2019\n<\/PRE>\nWouldn\u2019t it have been better if Windows didn\u2019t allow apostrophes in folder names, or if VBScript and WMI used a different character to delineate string values? Sure. But for now \u2026.<\/P>\n
Here\u2019s the complete script that connects to C:\\Ken Myer\u2019s Folder and tells us whether or not the folder is hidden:<\/P>
strComputer = “.”\nSet objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:\\\\” & strComputer & “\\root\\cimv2”)<\/p>\nSet colFolders = objWMIService. _\n ExecQuery(“Select * From Win32_Directory Where Name = ‘C:\\\\Ken Myer\\\u2019s Folder'”)<\/p>\n
For Each objFolder in colFolders\n Wscript.Echo “Hidden: ” & objFolder.Hidden\nNext\n<\/PRE>\n
Incidentally, if you\u2019re using the FileSystemObject (another way to work with files and folders), you don\u2019t have to worry about this; the apostrophe doesn\u2019t seem to bother the FileSystemObject. For example, if you want to know the size of Ken Myer\u2019s Folder, use this code:<\/P>
Set objFSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)\nSet objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(“C:\\Ken Myer\u2019s Folder”)\nWscript.Echo “Size: ” & objFolder.Size\n<\/PRE>\nNo escaping or other coding tricks required.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! I\u2019m using the WMI class Win32_Directory to get information about folders on a computer. It works great, except when there\u2019s an apostrophe in the folder name; then, it doesn\u2019t work at all. How can I use WMI to connect to folders that have apostrophes in their names?— JO Hey, JO. Ah, the […]<\/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":[11,3,12,5],"class_list":["post-70783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-folders","tag-scripting-guy","tag-storage","tag-vbscript"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! I\u2019m using the WMI class Win32_Directory to get information about folders on a computer. It works great, except when there\u2019s an apostrophe in the folder name; then, it doesn\u2019t work at all. How can I use WMI to connect to folders that have apostrophes in their names?— JO Hey, JO. Ah, the […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70783","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=70783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70783\/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=70783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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