I have a work task which involves setting up Windows XP machines. I'm not a Windows user normally which is why I ask this question.
The tasks involved in setting up one of these machines involve setting network addresses, users and specific 'Group Policies' and currently I do this manually for each machine. Naturally I want to script all these steps so I began to read up on the Registry and Windows Scripting. I've referred to various articles on the web and two books:
Between all these sources of information it appears to me there's a 'hodge-podge' of Microsoft 'technologies' which either duplicate means of accomplishing a specific task or uniquely achieve it but the documentation is confusing and unclear.
My simple way of understanding it is that the Registry is the container of all information/data on a computer while WMI and ADSI provide the means to read or alter it.
- Is this correct? And if so how does ADSI relate to WMI and vice-versa?
- Can I even achieve what I want by simply manipulating the Registry directly with a .vbs script say for altering the IP address of a network adapter?
- Is there any need to use ADSI?