HTA & Batch Hybrid, passing variables from BATCH section

Question

I'm attempting to write a batch + hta hybrid script that will allow me to pass variables from the batch section of the script to the hta section, so that way I can generate things like the computers model number etc.

This is what I have so far - Batch:

<!-- :: Batch section
    @echo off
    Pushd "%~dp0"
    setlocal

    FOR /F "tokens=2 delims='='" %%A in ('wmic ComputerSystem Get Model /value') do SET model=%%A

    for /F "delims=" %%a in ('mshta.exe "%~F0" "%model%"') do set "HTAreply=%%a"
    echo End of HTA window, reply: "%HTAreply%"
    goto :EOF
    -->

As you can see I attempted to use %model% as a parameter, and I tried to use arg1 in my VBScript section to try to use that variable - but it did not work.

So in my hta section, this is my vbscript:

<script language="VBScript">

    MsgBox arg1

</script>

Which just opens an empty box.

I've been searching for a while online trying to figure out a way to do this and I cannot figure it out. The way I got around this before was basically creating a batch script that creates a new file which is the hta & batch hybrid, but I want to avoid doing that for simplicity.

Any help would be much appreciated

Answer 1

You can access environment variables in the HTA runtime by using the Wscript.Shell COM object's Environment object. You can pass data back from HTA to the Batch thread over stdout by using Scripting.FileSystemObject's GetStandardStream method. Here's a demonstration of both:

<!-- :: Batch section
@echo off & setlocal
Pushd "%~dp0"

FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%A in ('wmic ComputerSystem Get Model /value') do SET model=%%A

for /F "delims=" %%a in ('mshta.exe "%~f0"') do set "HTAreply=%%a"
echo End of HTA window, reply: "%HTAreply%"
goto :EOF
-->
<script language="VBScript">

    Set Env = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Environment("Process")
    Set StdOut = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").GetStandardStream(1)

    MsgBox Env("model")
    StdOut.Write("response")

    Set Env = Nothing
    Set StdOut = Nothing

    close()

</script>

For what it's worth, you can also access VBScript in a hybrid format using cscript by kludging a pretend .wsf file extension. The advantage, besides getting rid of the brief flicker of an HTA window appearing and disappearing, is that you can pass script arguments directly without having to access the Environment("Process") scope.

<!-- : batch portion
@echo off & setlocal

FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%A in ('wmic ComputerSystem Get Model /value') do SET model=%%A

for /F "delims=" %%a in ('cscript /nologo "%~f0?.wsf" "%model%"') do set "VBreply=%%a"
echo End of VB script, reply: "%VBreply%"

goto :EOF

: VBScript -->
<job>
    <script language="VBScript">
        model = WScript.Arguments(0)

        MsgBox model
        Wscript.Echo "response"
    </script>
</job>

And hybrid Batch + JScript is even easier. It's also possible to have both VBScript and JScript code as multiple jobs with the .wsf method.