Microsoft removing support for VBScript in Windows

[Halcyon]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-to-kill-off-vbscript-in-windows-to-block-malware-delivery/

I suppose this has been a long time coming, but I'd hate to imagine the amount of legacy code there is out there using VBScript. Even within Excel or Word documents that people have cobbled together.

[rteodor]

No worries, it is being replaced with Python. At least in Office for now where they warn to be "careful with that Python".
So the future malware will come with "beautifully formatted code" and mandatory indentation.

[SiliconWizard]

No worries, it is being replaced with Python. At least in Office for now where they warn to be "careful with that Python".
So the future malware will come with "beautifully formatted code" and mandatory indentation.

Sounds nice. Python is the new VB anyway, indeed.
At least with Python, there is a minor chance that the malware developers will mess their malware up by screwing up the indentation, or the indentation getting screwed up when the files are copied and passed around.

[golden_labels]

When VBScript is completely removed, it will be an entire generation since PowerShell is available in Windows. In the professional context, can there be an excuse for still using VBScript?

The age itself is not the primary problem. Not even that it was merely repurposed for system scripting.⁽¹⁾ The real problem is the impedance mismatch between an environment built upon .NET and a language developed for early versions of COM. VBScript is a technology, which offered advantages over horrendously limited Batch, but quickly became a fossil with its primary features basically stalled and 3rd party components unmaintained.

As it often happens, there are also hobbyists. In particular these around and after 40. While their old scripts may have their quirks and problems in the 2020s, they likely still work quite fine. Having to stop using them may not be pleasant. And you can’t teach old dog new tricks easily. Hypothetically Microsoft could make VBScript free, but it’s not the language/interpreter that is a problem here: it’s aforementioned COM dependence. Given that VBScript is usually used by hobbyists in simple scripts, let’s hope they can be helped in porting them to PowerShell.

⁽¹⁾ The original purpose of VBScript was performing a vendor lock-in attack against the web environment.

[DimitriP]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-to-kill-off-vbscript-in-windows-to-block-malware-delivery/

I suppose this has been a long time coming, but I'd hate to imagine the amount of legacy code there is out there using VBScript. Even within Excel or Word documents that people have cobbled together.

Oh man,  Annakournikova.jpg.vbs won't work any more ?

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2590630/computer-virus-poses-as-image-of-tennis-star-anna-kournikova.html

[magic]

When VBScript is completely removed, it will be an entire generation since PowerShell is available in Windows. In the professional context, can there be an excuse for still using VBScript?

Yes, if the scripts work and the job they perform still exists.

Daily reminder that the opinion of software developers should always be disregarded by everybody in his right mind

[Peabody]

If one wanted to continue to use VBScript, Microsoft's decision notwithstanding, would that be possible?  I assume some future Windows Update (for Windows 10 for me) will remove it.  But if I had kept a copy of whatever was removed, perhaps under a different name, would that work?  My memory is that VBScript runs under some other scripting engine, like WSH, and perhaps that will be removed too.  I ask because I have a number of VBScripts that I wrote, and occasionally run, but don't want to bother rewriting them.

[golden_labels]

One could hypothetically make a free VBScript interpreter. Possibly even Microsoft could free their own. The problem is not the language. The problem is its dependence on Component Object Model. While COM isn’t officially removed yet, in practice it has been replaced by .NET and historically popular COM components became unmaintained and inadequate.

Given the number of existing scripting solutions, which are maintained, in active use and more adequate to current needs, doing CPR attempts on VBScript seems pointless.

[abeyer]

No worries, it is being replaced with Python. At least in Office

Office is a whole different thing -- this post is about VBScript which is the VB based scripting language that can run in IE and the windows script host... not VBA which is what is embedded in Office.

I'm not sure they aren't also aiming to phase out VBA, but that's not what this announcement is about and I'm not aware of any timeline for that yet.

[AndyBeez]

The developer community removed its support for VBS decades ago. Most people went down the PHP, C# and Python paths, leaving only a handful of maintainers working on this legacy codebase. There was a lot of VBS used in classic ASP active server pages at the start of the WWW, but now it is all Azure and AWS. I am surprised VBS has survived in the support cycle for this long.

[DimitriP]

but now it is all Azure and AWS

All genaralizations are false, including this one.

[AndyBeez]

but now it is all Azure and AWS

All genaralizations are false, including this one.

Not a lot of hiring for VBScripters - since 2005.

Azure and AWS dominate the cloud service arena. So if you're not up with your C#, JS, Rust, Python and cloud protocols, good luck.

There is possibly VBS running on embedded systems built before 2012? So so niche.