Happy Friday: Scripting Windows Search

As a small example of my previous post, here's a script that reads a search list (text strings, phrases) from a text file, and runs document searches for any that contain those phrases. It involves a few moving parts:

• A CMD script
• A VBScript script (sorry, redundant I know)
• An input text file
• A "logs" folder beneath the folder that stores the scripts and input file

To test this, drop a bunch of files with matching phrases on your C: drive using various formats like TXT, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, PDF, CSV, LOG and whatever.  Set up the three files below, then run the scanFiles.cmd script from the computer where the files reside.

CMD script (scanFiles.cmd)

@echo off
SETLOCAL
SET logfile=%~dps0logs\%computername%_files.txt
cscript.exe /nologo "%~dps0scanFiles.vbs" >%logfile%
ENDLOCAL

VBScript (scanFiles.vbs)

'****************************************************************
' Filename..: scanFiles.vbs
' Author....: David M. Stein
' Date......: 02/10/2011
' Purpose...: generate file scan report using Windows Search queries
'****************************************************************
Option Explicit

Const verbose = False

'----------------------------------------------------------------
' comment: DO NOT CHANGE ANY CODE BELOW THIS POINT !!!
'----------------------------------------------------------------

echo "info: script initialized " & Now

Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2

Dim objConnection, objRecordset, query, scriptPath, inputFile
Dim objFSO, objFile, strLine, searchList, itemCount : itemCount = 0
Dim filePath, phrase

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

scriptPath = Replace(wscript.ScriptFullName, "\" & wscript.ScriptName, "")
inputFile = "searchlist.txt"
filePath = scriptPath & "\" & inputFile

On Error Resume Next
echo "info: searching for searchlist.txt input file..."
If objFSO.FileExists(filePath) Then
    echo "info: reading search values..."
    Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(inputFile, ForReading)
    Do Until objFile.AtEndOfStream
        strLine = objFile.Readline

     If Left(strLine,1) <> ";" Then

         If searchList <> "" Then

             searchList = searchList & vbTab & strLine

         Else

             searchList = strLine

         End If

         itemCount = itemCount + 1

     End If

Loop
    objFile.Close
End If

echo "info: " & itemCount & " phrases were queued"

'----------------------------------------------------------------
  
echo "info: initializing window search interface..."
 
Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

echo "info: opening windows search data connection..."
objConnection.Open "Provider=Search.CollatorDSO;Extended " & _

"Properties='Application=Windows';"

If err.Number <> 0 Then
    echo "fail: connection-open failure [" & _

err.Number & ":" & err.Description & "]"
    wscript.quit(2)
End If

echo "info: beginning windows search scan process..."
For each phrase in Split(searchList, vbTab)
    wscript.echo "PHRASE: " & phrase
 
    query = "SELECT System.FileName, System.ItemPathDisplay, " & _
        "System.DateCreated, System.DateModified " & _

     "FROM SYSTEMINDEX WHERE Contains('" & Chr(34) & phrase & Chr(34) & "')"

 Set objRecordSet  = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

objRecordSet.Open query, objConnection
 
    If err.Number <> 0 Then
        echo "fail: recordset-open failure [" & _

         err.Number & ":" & err.Description & "]"

     objConnection.Close

     Set objConnection = Nothing

     wscript.quit(3)

End If

    If Not (objRecordset.BOF and objRecordset.EOF) Then
        objRecordSet.MoveFirst

     echo "info: iterating recordset results..."

     Do Until objRecordset.EOF

         wscript.echo "MATCH: " & _

             objRecordset.Fields.Item("System.ItemPathDisplay").value & _

             vbTab & objRecordset.Fields.Item("System.DateCreated").value & _

             vbTab & objRecordset.Fields.Item("System.DateModified").value

         objRecordset.MoveNext

     Loop

     wscript.echo

Else
        echo "info: no matching records were found"

End If
    objRecordset.Close
    Set objRecordset = Nothing
Next

objConnection.Close
Set objConnection = Nothing

echo "info: processing completed " & Now

Sub Echo(s)
    If verbose = True Then
        wscript.echo s
    End If
End Sub

Input File (searchlist.txt)

; input file, prefix with semi-colon to disable lines
Dogs hate cats
Fish hate cats
Cats love fish