CreateObject(“Wscript.Shell”) globally does not work

Question

I am trying to make a function that runs commands like this:

Set fso = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set stdout = fso.GetStandardStream (1)
print runCommand("git --help")

function runCommand(commandStr)
    set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
    Set objExec = objShell.Exec(commandStr)

    Do Until objExec.Status
        Wscript.Sleep 10
    Loop

    runCommand = objExec.StdOut.ReadAll()
end function

sub print(str)
    stdout.WriteLine str
end sub

That works fine, but then I want to use the objShell at a higher level, so then I decide to make objShell global:

set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
Set fso = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set stdout = fso.GetStandardStream (1)
print runCommand(objShell.CurrentDirectory)
print runCommand("git --help")

function runCommand(commandStr)
    Set objExec = objShell.Exec(commandStr)

    Do Until objExec.Status
        Wscript.Sleep 10
    Loop

    runCommand = objExec.StdOut.ReadAll()
end function

sub print(str)
    stdout.WriteLine str
end sub

However, now when I run it I get the error:

WshShell.Exec: Access is denied.

And it references the line set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") . If I try to make two different variables objShell and objShell2 I get the same error. How do I resolve this?

Answer 1

I managed to replicate your issue locally I found that the scope of WScript.Shell is not at fault.

Try this and it will most likely work (notice the commented out line) ;

set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
Set fso = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set stdout = fso.GetStandardStream (1)
'print runCommand(objShell.CurrentDirectory)
print runCommand("git --help")

function runCommand(commandStr)
    Set objExec = objShell.Exec(commandStr)

    Do Until objExec.Status
        Wscript.Sleep 10
    Loop

    runCommand = objExec.StdOut.ReadAll()
end function

sub print(str)
    stdout.WriteLine str
end sub

The Access Denied error appears to be related to calling objShell.CurrentDirectory .

The issue is you are trying to pass the current directory to objShell.Exec() and it doesn't know how to execute it (after all it's not an application) .

Here is an example in it's simplest form;

CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Exec("C:\")

Output:

WshShell.Exec: Access is denied.

If you just wanted to output the current directory using your script you probably wanted to use

print objShell.CurrentDirectory

instead.