Vista - PowerShell vs. Autoit

I'm new to PowerShell although its been on my TODO list to learn for some
time. I'm in an environment right now where Autoit is used for some
scripting and I was wondering if anyone can speak to the differences between
these two scripting environments / tools?

Thanks

Doug Holland

"Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
newsFA42265-620A-4C63-9C11-625258772EF7@microsoft.com...
> I'm new to PowerShell although its been on my TODO list to learn for some
> time. I'm in an environment right now where Autoit is used for some
> scripting and I was wondering if anyone can speak to the differences
> between these two scripting environments / tools?

I don't see them as *different* when talking about Autoit as an automation
tool, especially when dealing with GUI automation (automating clicks etc.).

Actually, I'd see them as complimentary. The later versions of Autoit
include AutoitX, which is a COM interface to Autoit. PowerShell can
call/use COM objects, so you may be able to use PowerShell to iterace with
Autoit for GUI automation.

Marco

Interesting, thanks.

- Doug

"Marco Shaw" <marcoDOTshaw_@_gmailDOTcom> wrote in message
news:e60vruoZHHA.2316@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>
> "Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
> newsFA42265-620A-4C63-9C11-625258772EF7@microsoft.com...
>> I'm new to PowerShell although its been on my TODO list to learn for some
>> time. I'm in an environment right now where Autoit is used for some
>> scripting and I was wondering if anyone can speak to the differences
>> between these two scripting environments / tools?
>
> I don't see them as *different* when talking about Autoit as an automation
> tool, especially when dealing with GUI automation (automating clicks
> etc.).
>
> Actually, I'd see them as complimentary. The later versions of Autoit
> include AutoitX, which is a COM interface to Autoit. PowerShell can
> call/use COM objects, so you may be able to use PowerShell to iterace with
> Autoit for GUI automation.
>
> Marco
>

"Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
news:2B3C8063-7B6F-4677-935C-F743585FBC0B@microsoft.com...
> Interesting, thanks.

Also, I meant in between the lines: Autoit will allow you to do GUI
automation of any kind of app. PowerShell is destined to be the shell
underneath all the GUIs you might see in the future, but that is years
away... So, in the future, you should be able to automate just about any
task using PowerShell, but there's only a few products that can do that
today, as far as I know:
Exchange 2007
Operations Manager 2007 (beta)

Marco

Sounds good, I'll plough through the documentation and take PowerShell out
for a 'test drive'.

"Marco Shaw" <marcoDOTshaw_@_gmailDOTcom> wrote in message
news:unVZ%234oZHHA.4552@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
> "Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
> news:2B3C8063-7B6F-4677-935C-F743585FBC0B@microsoft.com...
>> Interesting, thanks.
>
> Also, I meant in between the lines: Autoit will allow you to do GUI
> automation of any kind of app. PowerShell is destined to be the shell
> underneath all the GUIs you might see in the future, but that is years
> away... So, in the future, you should be able to automate just about any
> task using PowerShell, but there's only a few products that can do that
> today, as far as I know:
> Exchange 2007
> Operations Manager 2007 (beta)
>
> Marco
>

AFAICT, the way psh is used by Exchange and opsmgr is by making the cmdlets
the business logic layer. So the UI and console apps both call the *same
cmdlets and can do the same things. But psh is not driving the UI as such,
the UI is calling psh cmdlets. So in that sense, automating a UI becomes
unneeded because you can do everything the UI did in a simple script and
make it repeatable, etc. If you still need to drive a UI, not sure psh
helps much by itself.

--
William Stacey [C# MVP]
PCR concurrency library: www.codeplex.com/pcr
PSH Scripts Project www.codeplex.com/psobject


"Marco Shaw" <marcoDOTshaw_@_gmailDOTcom> wrote in message
news:unVZ%234oZHHA.4552@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
|
| "Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
| news:2B3C8063-7B6F-4677-935C-F743585FBC0B@microsoft.com...
| > Interesting, thanks.
|
| Also, I meant in between the lines: Autoit will allow you to do GUI
| automation of any kind of app. PowerShell is destined to be the shell
| underneath all the GUIs you might see in the future, but that is years
| away... So, in the future, you should be able to automate just about any
| task using PowerShell, but there's only a few products that can do that
| today, as far as I know:
| Exchange 2007
| Operations Manager 2007 (beta)
|
| Marco
|
|

"William Stacey [C# MVP]" <william.stacey@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23CA18$oZHHA.3628@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> AFAICT, the way psh is used by Exchange and opsmgr is by making the
> cmdlets
> the business logic layer. So the UI and console apps both call the *same
> cmdlets and can do the same things. But psh is not driving the UI as
> such,
> the UI is calling psh cmdlets. So in that sense, automating a UI becomes
> unneeded because you can do everything the UI did in a simple script and
> make it repeatable, etc. If you still need to drive a UI, not sure psh
> helps much by itself.

Agreed. That's what I meant... Didn't I say that? ;-)

Marco

Sorry if I was redundant. Just had to agree.

--
William Stacey [C# MVP]

PowerShell will also be included in

Virtual Server Manager
Data Protection Manager V2 - as of beta 2 in early 2007
Microsoft Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino

You can easily use Powershell to admin

SQL 2005 via SMO
IIS 7
--
Richard Siddaway
Please note that all scripts are supplied "as is" and with no warranty
Blog: http://richardsiddaway.spaces.live.com/
PowerShell User Group: http://www.get-psuguk.org.uk


"Marco Shaw" wrote:

>
> "Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
> news:2B3C8063-7B6F-4677-935C-F743585FBC0B@microsoft.com...
> > Interesting, thanks.
>
> Also, I meant in between the lines: Autoit will allow you to do GUI
> automation of any kind of app. PowerShell is destined to be the shell
> underneath all the GUIs you might see in the future, but that is years
> away... So, in the future, you should be able to automate just about any
> task using PowerShell, but there's only a few products that can do that
> today, as far as I know:
> Exchange 2007
> Operations Manager 2007 (beta)
>
> Marco
>
>
>

I think MMC is going to become "training wheels" for PowerShell.

"William Stacey [C# MVP]" wrote:

> AFAICT, the way psh is used by Exchange and opsmgr is by making the cmdlets
> the business logic layer. So the UI and console apps both call the *same
> cmdlets and can do the same things. But psh is not driving the UI as such,
> the UI is calling psh cmdlets. So in that sense, automating a UI becomes
> unneeded because you can do everything the UI did in a simple script and
> make it repeatable, etc. If you still need to drive a UI, not sure psh
> helps much by itself.
>
> --
> William Stacey [C# MVP]
> PCR concurrency library: www.codeplex.com/pcr
> PSH Scripts Project www.codeplex.com/psobject
>
>
> "Marco Shaw" <marcoDOTshaw_@_gmailDOTcom> wrote in message
> news:unVZ%234oZHHA.4552@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> |
> | "Doug Holland" <doug.holland@precisionobjects.com> wrote in message
> | news:2B3C8063-7B6F-4677-935C-F743585FBC0B@microsoft.com...
> | > Interesting, thanks.
> |
> | Also, I meant in between the lines: Autoit will allow you to do GUI
> | automation of any kind of app. PowerShell is destined to be the shell
> | underneath all the GUIs you might see in the future, but that is years
> | away... So, in the future, you should be able to automate just about any
> | task using PowerShell, but there's only a few products that can do that
> | today, as far as I know:
> | Exchange 2007
> | Operations Manager 2007 (beta)
> |
> | Marco
> |
> |
>
>
>