From .vbs to .ps1: Why We Are Still Talking About VBScript in the Cloud Era (And How to Finally Let Go)
It has been a long time since the golden era of SMS 2003 and SQL Server 2005. If you are reading this on DotVBS, you likely landed here for one of two reasons.
First, you might be maintaining a legacy environment that simply refuses to die. You have a server rack somewhere running an OS that hasn’t seen a patch in a decade, and a critical login script just failed. You needed that specific WMI query I wrote in 2008 to pull a hardware ID or fix a cache location.
Second, you might be a systems engineer in transition. You grew up on On Error Resume Next and CreateObject("WScript.Shell"), but the world has moved on to cloud instances, CI/CD pipelines, and PowerShell.
This post is for both of you.
It’s ironic that a site dedicated to "Windows Systems Management" via VBScript is seeing a resurgence in traffic not because the technology is new, but because it is now "rare earth" knowledge. We are entering the long-tail end of VBScript's lifecycle. Microsoft has officially announced the deprecation of VBScript in Windows, turning it into a "Feature on Demand" before its eventual removal.
But as any veteran admin knows, "deprecated" doesn't mean "gone." It means "technical debt." Today, we’re going to talk about where VBScript sits in the modern ecosystem, why you’re likely still Googling it, and how to take those hard-earned logic skills and apply them to the modern standard: PowerShell, specifically in the context of the cloud.
The Persona of the "Archaeologist Admin"
If you are searching for "VBScript read SCCM client GUID" in 2025, you are performing digital archaeology. You aren't building; you are excavating.
The persona of the modern VBScript user has shifted. Ten years ago, we were architects using VBScript to glue SMS 2003 and Active Directory together. Today, we are preservationists. You are likely dealing with:
- Legacy Logon Scripts: That one script written by a guy named Dave in 2004 that maps drives based on group membership, and nobody dares to rewrite it because Dave left no documentation.
- Application Wrappers: Old MSI installers wrapped in VBScript to handle pre-req checks that modern deployment tools (like Intune or MECM) should handle natively.
- Hardware Interaction: Interfacing with older industrial controls or COM objects that never got a .NET wrapper.
The "Long Tail" SEO keywords that bring people here—troubleshoot SMS client install, WMI query for disk space VBS—are indicators of infrastructure that is resistant to change. But here is the hard truth: staying in the VBScript ecosystem is becoming a liability. Not just because of security (VBScript has long been a vector for malware), but because it limits your career velocity.
VBScript vs. PowerShell: A Rosetta Stone
The hardest part of moving from VBScript to PowerShell isn't the syntax; it's the philosophy. VBScript is text-based. You manipulate strings. PowerShell is object-based. You manipulate data structures.
Let’s look at a classic example from this blog: querying WMI.
The Old Way (VBScript):
Back in the day, if we wanted to find the drive space on a server, we did this:
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk Where DriveType = 3")
For Each objItem in colItems
Wscript.Echo "DeviceID: " & objItem.DeviceID
Wscript.Echo "FreeSpace: " & objItem.FreeSpace
NextIt works. It’s fast. But look at what we are doing. We are manually iterating through a collection and echoing strings. If we wanted to do math on that free space (convert bytes to GB), we’d have to write the conversion logic ourselves inside the loop.
The Modern Way (PowerShell):
Now, look at the PowerShell equivalent.
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter "DriveType = 3" |
Select-Object DeviceID, @{Name="FreeGB";Expression={[math]::Round($_.FreeSpace/1GB,2)}}This isn't just shorter. It’s fundamentally different.
Get-CimInstance: We use CIM standards, which are more firewall-friendly than the old DCOM/RPC used by WMI.- The Pipeline (
|): We pass the objects representing the disks directly to the next command. - Calculated Properties: We can do the math on the fly without writing a loop.
For the persona reading this blog, the logic remains the same: Identify resource -> Query property -> Manipulate data -> Output result. You already know the "what" (WMI classes like Win32_OperatingSystem or CCM_Client). You just need to update the "how."
Why Your VBScript Knowledge is Actually Cloud Knowledge
Here is the secret that many legacy admins miss: The cloud is just a really big version of SMS 2003.
Think about it. In SMS 2003, we managed "Collections" of computers. We pushed "Packages" (software) and "Advertisements" (instructions). We queried "Inventory" (WMI).
In Amazon Web Services (AWS), we manage "Auto Scaling Groups" (Collections). We push "User Data" or "SSM Documents" (Advertisements). We query "AWS Config" (Inventory).
The mental model you built troubleshooting SMS Error 10035 is directly applicable to troubleshooting an AWS Systems Manager Agent failure. The only difference is the toolset. Instead of cscript.exe, you are using the AWS Tools for PowerShell.
If you can write a VBScript to check for a file existence before running an installer, you can write a PowerShell script to check for an S3 bucket object before launching an EC2 instance. The transition is natural, but you have to force yourself to use the modern tool.
Bridging the Gap: Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services
This brings me to the next evolution of your career. If you are comfortable scripting against root\cimv2, you are ready to script against the AWS API.
I realized that many Systems Administrators were struggling with this jump. They knew how to script, but they didn't know how to apply it to the nebulous concept of "The Cloud." They were stuck clicking around the AWS Console GUI, which is the modern equivalent of manually installing software on 500 machines one by one.
To help bridge this gap, I wrote Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services.
This book isn't a dry manual of cmdlets. It’s written with the same mindset as this blog: practical, problem-solving automation. It is designed for the admin who wants to take their on-premises scripting skills and apply them to cloud infrastructure.
In the book, I cover:
- Infrastructure as Code: Moving from "clicking next" to defining your environment in scripts.
- AWS Lambda: Running your PowerShell scripts serverlessly (think of it as a scheduled task without the server).
- Systems Manager: The spiritual successor to SCCM/SMS, allowing you to run PowerShell across thousands of EC2 instances instantly.
For example, remember how we used to struggle with inventorying software in SMS? In the book, I walk through how to use PowerShell to query AWS tags and instance metadata to build dynamic reports—essentially the modern version of a v_R_System SQL query.
The "Long Tail" of Your Career
So, why keep this content up on DotVBS? Why not delete the posts about SMS 2003?
Because the "Long Tail" applies to careers as much as it does to SEO. The foundation you built learning VBScript—understanding logic flow, error handling, and WMI structures—is the bedrock of modern automation.
When you Google a VBScript error code today, you aren't just looking for a fix; you are acknowledging a legacy. But don't let that legacy become a trap. Fix the script, patch the server, and then spend the rest of your afternoon rewriting that logic in PowerShell.
If you are ready to make that leap from cscript to Invoke-RestMethod, and from SMS Sites to AWS Regions, take a look at the book. It’s the guide I wish I had when I was migrating my own skillset from the data center to the cloud.
Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services
Keep scripting, no matter the language. But maybe try to use fewer On Error Resume Next statements this year.
About the Author
Emmanuel Tsouris is a Systems Management veteran and Developer Advocate specializing in PowerShell and Cloud Automation. He maintains DotVBS to preserve legacy knowledge for the "archaeologist admin."
Ready to move from VBScript to the Cloud? Check out his book, Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services.
Visit EmmanuelTsouris.com for his latest projects.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no cost to you.
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