This is a script I created last year to monitor some files from a Zenoss server. These files are created by an application that receives CDRs from an Asterisk server in another country, and sometimes these files have stopped getting updated even though no network errors seem to exist, so, the safest way to make sure they were always up to date was to monitor the files' modification time; and we wanted to do it from our central monitoring solution, which happens to be Zenoss. This is a somewhat specific task, so this script will probably not help others without some modifications, but it shows the use of some concepts and functions that are widely used when creating VB Scripts. It demonstrates the use of: -Functions and Procedures -File I/O (reading and writing files) -Use of multidimensional arrays -Date/Time manipulation functions (now,TimeSerial,DateDiff,DatePart,DateAdd,CDate) -String manipulation functions (Mid,Left,Right,Replace,Len,InStrRev,Split,UCase) -Execution of WMI queries Here is the code:

'Script used to generate monitoring information based on the modification time of the specified files
'Designed to provide monitoring information for a Zenoss server
'Requires a parameter file stored in the root of "C" drive, called "time.ini"
'The ini file at most can define 4 files, and 5 time frames per file. File patterns are allowed.
'
'Example of an ini file with 1 file and 1 time frame:
'FILE1=C:sourceORAXMLClient_DIDDebugxml_$dd$mm%
'00:00:00,23:59:59,10
'
'
'This script returns the number of "monitoring periods" passed since the "last modified" time of the files
'Author: Carlos De Leon - 2010
'
'Parameters are stored this way in the parameters array
'Parameters(fileNumber,periodNumber)(parameter value). The third dimension is the parameter value. 
'For each timeframe definition:
'    The first position is the start time,
'    The second one is the end time, and
'    The third position is the number of minutes that represent a "monitoring period"



Const ForReading = 1
strFile="c:time.ini"

Dim files(3,1)
Dim parameters(3,4)
fileNumber = -1
PeriodsOld1 = 0
PeriodsOld2 = 0
PeriodsOld3 = 0
PeriodsOld4 = 0

'Read the ini file
ReadOptions

currentDate = now()
currentTime = TimeSerial(DatePart("h",currentDate),DatePart("n",currentDate),DatePart("s",currentDate))

for i = 0 to fileNumber
    minutes = getMinsOld(files(i,0),currentDate)
    if minutes < 0 then
        wscript.quit(1)        ' No files found
    end if
    for j = 0 to files(i,1)
        startTime = TimeSerial(mid(parameters(i,j)(0),1,2),mid(parameters(i,j)(0),4,2),mid(parameters(i,j)(0),7,2))
        endTime = TimeSerial(mid(parameters(i,j)(1),1,2),mid(parameters(i,j)(1),4,2),mid(parameters(i,j)(1),7,2))
        minsPerPeriod = parameters(i,j)(2)
        if currentTime >= startTime and currentTime <= endTime then
            PeriodLength = minsPerPeriod
            exit for
        end if
    next
    periodsOld = minutes/PeriodLength
    select case i
    case 0
        PeriodsOld1 = periodsOld
    case 1
        PeriodsOld2 = periodsOld
    case 2
        PeriodsOld3 = periodsOld
    case 3
        PeriodsOld4 = periodsOld
    End Select
next

wscript.echo "PeriodsOld:" & PeriodsOld1 & " PeriodsOld2:" & PeriodsOld2 & " PeriodsOld3:" & PeriodsOld3 & " PeriodsOld4:" & PeriodsOld4
wscript.quit 0


'---------------------------------
' FUNCTIONS AND PROCEDURES
'---------------------------------

sub ReadOptions()
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
if objFSO.fileexists (strFile) then
    Set objTextFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile (strFile, ForReading)
    Do Until objTextFile.AtEndOfStream
            strTextLine = objTextFile.Readline
           'ignore blank lines
        if len(trim(strTextLine)) > 0 then
            'at most 4 files are allowed
            if fileNumber < 4 then
                if ucase(mid(strTextLine,1,4)) = "FILE" then
                fileNumber = fileNumber + 1
                if fileNumber > 0 then
                    files(fileNumber-1,1) = periodNumber
                end if
                periodNumber = -1
                files(fileNumber,0) = mid(strTextLine,7,len(strTextLine)-6)
                else   
                periodNumber = periodNumber + 1
                parameters(fileNumber,periodNumber) = split(strTextLine,",")
                end if
            end if
        end if
    loop
    files(fileNumber,1) = periodNumber
else
  'Ini file not found
  wscript.quit(2)    'returning 2 raises the severity and generates an event in the monitoring engine (Zenoss)
end if
End Sub

'---------------------------------

function getMinsOld(files,currentDate)

Dim colFiles
Dim objFSO

'separates drive,dir and pattern
endOfDirPos = InStrRev(files,"")
dir = left(files,endOfDirPos)
initialPattern = mid(files,endOfDirPos+1,len(files)-endOfDirPos)
drive = mid(dir,1,2)
path = replace(mid(dir,3,len(dir)-2),"","")

pattern = constructPattern(initialPattern,currentDate)

getFiles pattern,drive,path,colFiles,objFSO
'if no files are found, tries with the date from the previous day
if colfIles.count = 0 then
    pattern = constructPattern(initialPattern,DateAdd("d",-1,currentDate))
    getFiles pattern,drive,path,colFiles,objFSO
end if
mins = -1
if colFiles.count > 0 then
    For Each File in colFiles
        set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(File.Name)
        fileMins = datediff("n",CDate( objFile.DateLastModified),now())
        'keep the samller value in variable "mins"
        if fileMins < mins or mins < 0 then
        mins = fileMins
        end if
    Next
else
    getMinsOld = -1            ' 0 files found
end if
getMinsOld = mins
End function

'---------------------------------

function constructPattern(originalPattern,baseDate)
baseYear = DatePart("yyyy",baseDate)
baseMonth = right("0"&DatePart("m",baseDate),2)
baseDay = right("0"&DatePart("d",baseDate),2)
'replace variables with approriate values from the base date
newPattern = replace(replace(replace(replace(originalPattern,"$dd",baseDay),"$mm",baseMonth),"$yyyy",baseYear),"$yy",right(baseYear,2))
constructPattern = newPattern
end function

'---------------------------------

Sub getFiles(filePattern,drive,path,colFiles,objFSO)
'look in the local computer
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!" & strComputer & "rootcimv2")
query = "Select name,lastmodified from CIM_DataFile where drive = '" & drive & "' and path = '" & path & "' and filename like '" & filePattern & "'"
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set colFiles = objWMIService.ExecQuery (query)
end Sub

'---------------------------------

To use this script from the Zenoss server, a new data source must be created, with a command that would use the winexe tool to remotely execute the vb script.  Something like this:

/usr/local/zenoss/common/bin/winexe -U "${dev/zWinUser}%${dev/zWinPassword}" //${dev/manageIp} "cscript //NoLogo c:something.vbs"

Feel free to post any comments or doubts in the discussion section below.

Software/Hardware used:
Zenoss server on Ubuntu Linux, Windows Clients