vTask Forum - Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters

Orionizer Full Member (10+) Offline Posts: 17 North Carolina, US	Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Jan 18^th, 2008 at 11:29am Is there any way to retrieve a list of unused drive letters (for use in mapping drives)?
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Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #1 - Jan 18^th, 2008 at 7:46pm

There's no intrinsic method in vTask to do this (it would have use to few people), but there may be other ways to accomplish the same thing. For example, one way might be to use a Loop from A - Z and use IF File Exists with the drive letter + *.*, such as "IF File Exists H:\*.*", if it fails, it's not a valid drive yet. Then you will have a list of unmapped drives.

That's one idea, another is perhaps you could call DlgDirList(), and there might be even more ways to get the list of unmapped drives.

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Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #2 - Jan 18^th, 2008 at 7:58pm

Since I was curious to see if my suggestion was feasible, I put together a script that shows it in action. On this particular computer, there's only a C: drive and a cd-rom at D: without a cd, and the results are accurate. This should do just what you want, and you can easily change the formatting, start at a drive past E:, etc.

VXM Script: (Copy and Paste into vTask)

<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<output value="%unmapped">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Start 'For' Loop</action>
	<text>26</text>
	<value1>1</value1>
	<value2>1</value2>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Format Number</action>
	<text>={loopcount}+64</text>
	<value1>%C</value1>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drive">Variable</output>
	<comment>'A' + loop</comment>
</step>
<step>
	<action>IF File Exists</action>
	<text>%drive:\*.*</text>
	<options>IF NOT</options>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<text>%unmapped%drive:;</text>
	<indents>2</indents>
	<output value="%unmapped">Variable</output>
	<comment>concatenate</comment>
</step>
<step>
	<action>END IF</action>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>NEXT LOOP</action>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Choose from a List</action>
	<text>Unmapped Drives:;%unmapped</text>
	<value1>Unmapped Drives</value1>
</step>

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Orionizer Full Member (10+) Offline Posts: 17 North Carolina, US	Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Reply #3 - Jan 18^th, 2008 at 8:42pm Wow! Thanks alot!!! I'll be working on this all weekend now I have a place to start!
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vTask Support Moderator Offline Posts: 3596 Tucson, AZ	Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Reply #4 - Jan 18^th, 2008 at 9:01pm good luck with your scripts
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Orionizer

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North Carolina, US

Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #5 - Jan 18^th, 2008 at 9:05pm

Ok, after trying that, I am getting some errors (relating to drive not available - it's throwing an exception).

The exact exception message I'm getting is:

Windows - No Disk

Exception Processing Message 0xc0000013 Parameters 0x75F6023C
0x8490884C 0x75F6023C 0x75F6023C

[Cancel] [Try Again] [Continue]

I tried modifying the code a little as shown here (to skip drives A: - F: ):

VXM Script: (Copy and Paste into vTask)

<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<output value="%unmapped">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Start 'For' Loop</action>
	<text>20</text>
	<value1>1</value1>
	<value2>1</value2>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Format Number</action>
	<text>={loopcount}+70</text>
	<comment>'G' + loop</comment>
	<value1>%C</value1>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drive">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>IF File Exists</action>
	<text>%drive:\*.*</text>
	<options>IF NOT</options>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<text>%unmapped%drive:;</text>
	<comment>concatenate</comment>
	<indents>2</indents>
	<output value="%unmapped">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>END IF</action>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>NEXT LOOP</action>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Custom Dialog</action>
	<text>Drive Letter;%unmapped|\\server\share|Sample Button: Jumps to Label|Sample List:;Option A;Option B;Option C|&lt;a href="http://www.vtaskstudio.com"&gt;This is a Sample Link&lt;/a&gt;</text>
	<value1>Map Drive</value1>
	<value2>LIST</value2>
	<value3>EDIT</value3>
</step>

But I'm still getting the exception... Is there an exception wrapper available? I can't seem to find one.

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« Last Edit: Jan 18^th, 2008 at 10:45pm by vTask Support »

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vTask Support

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Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #6 - Jan 18^th, 2008 at 10:40pm

Your script works perfectly on my PC. The exception you're seeing is not coming from vTask (vTask doesn't throw exceptions).

What version of Windows are you using? Clearly the OS or something doesn't like doing a file exist Z:\*.* if the drive/mapping is non existent, as is obvious from the "Windows - No Disk" error message that is showing.

Assuming that your setup won't allow this approach, another method would be to use the "Get File Info" action with the "Free Drive Space" option (requires vTask version 7.16 or greater).

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Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #7 - Jan 19^th, 2008 at 2:50am

Thomas

(aka IT troubleshooter extraordinaire) was kind enough to investigate this issue, and discovered that apparently this is a Windows thing (not to pass the buck, but that's how it needs to be fixed). He was able to duplicate it, and said, "After I returned the virtual drive, with image mounted or unmounted the problem is now gone. This is "consistent" with the reports of renaming the problem drive to something else, then renaming them back if you want, fixing the problem."

A links he found that directly address this oddity:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/XP/Q_2289...

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Orionizer

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Posts: 17
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Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #8 - Jan 19^th, 2008 at 6:55am

The OS I was running that script on was Vista/32.

I just tried it on WinXP and no error.

THOUGH A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS:

My Vista machine has built-in flash card readers - which might be part of the fixed drives I'm scanning - I'm going to modify the code to skip everything on my machine and try again. If that works, it could be the flash reader driver throwing the exception...

I'll let you know what I find.

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Orionizer Full Member (10+) Offline Posts: 17 North Carolina, US	Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Reply #9 - Jan 19^th, 2008 at 6:56am PS - I forgot to thank you for the links! I'll check those as well!
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Orionizer

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Posts: 17
North Carolina, US

Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #10 - Jan 19^th, 2008 at 5:42pm

Ok, after excluding the flash drives on the reader, I no longer get the error message! So I imagine it must be the driver throwing the exception...

Now, to try to figure out a way around it... I'm going to look at creating an external .DLL to handle the drive validity and try a call to it.

Thanks for your help!!!

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vTask Support Moderator Offline Posts: 3596 Tucson, AZ	Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Reply #11 - Jan 23^rd, 2008 at 6:57am The new feature described in this post added to version 7.16 .
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Orionizer Full Member (10+) Offline Posts: 17 North Carolina, US	Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Reply #12 - Jan 23^rd, 2008 at 7:05am You guys are the GREATEST!!! I'm glad my search for automation software found (and ended with) VTask!!!
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vTask Support Moderator Offline Posts: 3596 Tucson, AZ	Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters Reply #13 - Jan 23^rd, 2008 at 7:08am Thanks for the kind words
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Orionizer

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Posts: 17
North Carolina, US

Re: Enumerate only UNUSED drive letters
Reply #14 - Jan 28^th, 2008 at 6:48am

If anyone is interested, here is what I've figured out to give you ONLY the unused drives on your system (for use in a drive map, etc.):

VXM Script: (Copy and Paste into vTask)

<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<output value="%unmapped">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Start 'For' Loop</action>
	<text>26</text>
	<value1>1</value1>
	<value2>1</value2>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drvtype">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<text>-1</text>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drvspc">Variable</output>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Format Number</action>
	<text>={loopcount}+64</text>
	<value1>%C</value1>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drive">Variable</output>
	<comment>'G' + loop</comment>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Get File Info</action>
	<options>Drive Total Space</options>
	<value1>%drive:</value1>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drvspc">Variable</output>
	<onfail>Ignore/Continue</onfail>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Get File Info</action>
	<options>Drive Type</options>
	<value1>%drive:</value1>
	<indents>1</indents>
	<output value="%drvtype">Variable</output>
	<onfail>Ignore/Continue</onfail>
</step>
<step>
	<action>IF Expression</action>
	<text>%drvspc = -1</text>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>IF Expression</action>
	<text>%drvtype = Unknown</text>
	<indents>2</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Set Variable</action>
	<text>%unmapped%drive:;</text>
	<indents>3</indents>
	<output value="%unmapped">Variable</output>
	<comment>concatenate</comment>
</step>
<step>
	<action>END IF</action>
	<indents>2</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>END IF</action>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>
<step>
	<action>NEXT LOOP</action>
</step>
<step>
	<action>Custom Dialog</action>
	<text>Drive Letter;%unmapped|\\server\share|Sample Button: Jumps to Label|Sample List:;Option A;Option B;Option C|&lt;a href="http://www.vtaskstudio.com"&gt;This is a Sample Link&lt;/a&gt;</text>
	<value1>Map Drive</value1>
	<value2>LIST</value2>
	<value3>EDIT</value3>
	<indents>1</indents>
</step>

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« Last Edit: Jan 28^th, 2008 at 8:21am by vTask Support »

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