» VBScript: Download and Save a Binary File

24Jan/0782

VBScript: Download and Save a Binary File

Update: If you are an iTunes user that needs VBScript, this page won't help you. Please visit the following two sites for two different solutions: Apple Docs and KeathMilligan.net.

This is an old script I dug up which I call "fileFetch". It's a script that downloads a binary file using XMLHTTP and saves it using an ADO stream. This is handy for nightly downloads and will work within SQL Server DTS packages.

Dirty Code

' Set your settings

    strFileURL = "http://www.domain.com/file.zip"

    strHDLocation = "D:\file.zip"


' Fetch the file

    Set objXMLHTTP = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")


    objXMLHTTP.open "GET", strFileURL, false

    objXMLHTTP.send()


		If objXMLHTTP.Status = 200 Then

			Set objADOStream = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")

			objADOStream.Open

			objADOStream.Type = 1 'adTypeBinary


			objADOStream.Write objXMLHTTP.ResponseBody

			objADOStream.Position = 0    'Set the stream position to the start


			Set objFSO = Createobject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

				If objFSO.Fileexists(strHDLocation) Then objFSO.DeleteFile strHDLocation

			Set objFSO = Nothing


			objADOStream.SaveToFile strHDLocation

			objADOStream.Close

			Set objADOStream = Nothing

		End if


		Set objXMLHTTP = Nothing

Posted by: Chrissy Filed under: VBScript Leave a comment

Comments (82) Trackbacks (1) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

GF
January 24th, 2007 - 14:51

Why not to use WGET.exe (command line utility), which can be run from VBSCRIPT?

( REPLY )
Chrissy
January 28th, 2007 - 20:01

Hey Gf,
Powershell works too.. or curl.. But I usually try to use objects that are built-in so that there are no additional downloads required.

( REPLY )
bob
February 24th, 2007 - 01:31

WHAT THE HELL IS VBSCRIPT AND HOW DO I DOWNLOAD IT BECAUSE I CAN’T GET ITUNES WITH IT.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

( REPLY )
Chrissy
February 24th, 2007 - 05:33

lolz. wtf, bobbles.

VBScript comes with windows.. you save code to a .txt file, rename it to .vbs and double click. It will launch wscript.exe but srsly, it can damage your system if you run crap code. Your problem will unlikely be solved by figuring out what vbscript is, however. so yeah.

( REPLY )
coby
March 25th, 2007 - 22:10

hi, just like bob here, we cannot get itunes or quick time to install into our computer to use the iPod…can you please help us out because we are very unsure of what to do,

coby

( REPLY )
Bader
April 11th, 2007 - 04:39

Greate litle script. Made the day for me!!

( REPLY )
Genn
April 19th, 2007 - 18:02

I am also having the exact same problems as bob and Coby, but I’m not sure I understand the answer you gave bob. So what do I do to be able to install iTunes? Every time I try, a window pops up saying I have to have VBScript in order to install iTunes. I tried downloading it, but is not working for me. This is VERY frustrating!

( REPLY )
Chrissy
April 19th, 2007 - 22:22

iTunes Users,
I’m sorry but I cannot help you. I don’t use iTunes and I do not have a solution on how vbscript will help you install iTunes. Please go to Apple’s forums or keep searching Google for an answers.

( REPLY )
Bob Jeffery
April 23rd, 2007 - 18:01

I could not get it to work with the path below, I think it is because I need to pass it a username and pwd. Other than that it is exactly what I am needing.

Any suggestions on how to pass it user & pwd?

Thanks!

http://www.greenecountymo.org/Recorder_FTP/12-26-2006c.zip

( REPLY )
Lisa
June 29th, 2007 - 12:55

can someone please leave detail help on how to get a vb script download or or how to create a script. Like others having problems with itunes

any help will be greatly appreciated!!!!

( REPLY )
David
July 3rd, 2007 - 11:28

Nice script! Thanks for sharing.

( REPLY )
Sandy
July 12th, 2007 - 18:00

Cool script !!! I love it !
Thank you very much

( REPLY )
Jason
August 7th, 2007 - 22:22

Thank you very much. I am using this to automate the installation of our new A/V to VPN users. It is much quicker to have them download the application using an external web server than through the VPN concentrator. Thank you 1000 times over.

( REPLY )
Maverick
September 4th, 2007 - 23:40

Thanks great script

( REPLY )
Mihai
October 17th, 2007 - 21:25

Well, I tried using the script to download an image file from my test web server and save it to my hdd, but it keeps erroring out with “Safety settings on this computer prohibit saving data on another domain”, although my test web server is on the local machine. I even turned the whole script into an HTA application, to no avail. I’m using IE7. Any suggestions?

( REPLY )
swat
October 25th, 2007 - 05:53

To Mihai:
It has nothing to do with the location of the installed webserver. The safety settings of IE 7 disallow saving the File with the FileSystemObject (otherwise websites could access your local filesystem >.<). Just click with the right mousebutton on the message and click on allow.

( REPLY )
Chrissy
October 31st, 2007 - 15:36

Charles,
Huh?

Chrissy

( REPLY )
Charles
October 31st, 2007 - 15:23

WGET – damn linux trolls. Because stringing all the things you might want to do in addition to the download into a command line is just backwards.

( REPLY )
Casey
November 4th, 2007 - 10:34

You are awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

( REPLY )
Gabe
November 29th, 2007 - 13:40

Thanks for the script Works great..

What if i want to grab an entire folder?

Thanks

Gbae

( REPLY )
TentHead
December 21st, 2007 - 19:37

Is there any way to monitor the download progress??

( REPLY )
CC
February 5th, 2008 - 11:56

Sweet ass script. Thanks.

( REPLY )
MRIS
March 3rd, 2008 - 15:02

Thats a great script. This is a shorter alternative:

dim ie
set ie.createobject(“internetexplorer.application”)
ie.visible=false
ie.navigateto(“”)
do while ie.busy=true
wscript.sleep 60
loop
ie.document.execwb(“saveas”,2,)
ie.quit

( REPLY )
Josh
March 18th, 2008 - 07:28

Very useful. Thank you.

( REPLY )
mwalstra
April 17th, 2008 - 04:03

Awesome script, this is just what i was needing

( REPLY )
felipEx
April 19th, 2008 - 23:57

thanks a lot! was very useful for me ;D

sorry for ask… i’m really interested to know what plugin do you actually use to dynamically load posts with ajax when you get at page’s bottom (‘Loading the next set of posts’)

sorry for my crappy english, feel free to mailme =P

( REPLY )
Sticks
May 16th, 2008 - 14:53

Excellent script – just the job !, thanx for sharing.

( REPLY )
Skyesblue
June 6th, 2008 - 22:00

Is it possible to load an http site, locate an href link and click it, acknowledge the dialog save as… box, and indicate the destination directory all through VBScript. It would be so much easier if an FTP site was provided, but it isn’t, so I’m trying to take your script and make it do the additional steps, not even sure it’s possible, ideas, hints, direction will be appreciated. -rm

( REPLY )
Bryan Siew
July 16th, 2008 - 02:54

This is sooooo cool! Thx

( REPLY )
James
August 4th, 2008 - 06:49

Very useful,

thank you

( REPLY )
Rui
September 3rd, 2008 - 02:06

Works quite well!
And it´s able to download files from a SP site, for instance, and wget.exe can´t do that…

( REPLY )
Amit
September 29th, 2008 - 13:35

Thanks for providing this script, it really helped me a lot.

( REPLY )
Amit
September 29th, 2008 - 13:58

I have just tested your script and it worked well with small size of file but in case of large file say 500MB it throws following error:
ADODB.Stream: Out of memory

Please fix the code and let us know.

Thank you very much.

( REPLY )
Kei
October 28th, 2008 - 06:30

Thats is so POSSIBLE IMPOSSIBLE!
The text contains VIRUS! Holy moly once i saved as a text the avast pop up and says that it contain virus even that it just a TEXT VBS.

( REPLY )
Chrissy
October 28th, 2008 - 20:58

It’s not a virus nor does it contain a virus. A lot of anti virus apps wrongly consider any vbs file a virus. Or maybe it hates FSO. But you can see clearly from the code that it’s just downloading a file. If that’s a virus, then I download hundreds of viruses a day.

( REPLY )
quux
November 7th, 2008 - 04:16

Hi there,

Nice script – thanks!

I’ve refactored it a bit so that it can be called as a simple function which downloads directly to your temp dir. So now you can:

Call DownloadFile(“http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/faust_20.png”)

And it will download that file to your temp dir. Here is the function:

Function DownloadFile(DownloadUrl) ‘generic file downloader, saves to temp
‘Get name of file from url (whatever follows the final forwardslash “/”)
Dim arURL, FileName, FileSaveLocation
arURL = Split(DownloadUrl,”/”,-1,1)
If arURL(UBound(arURL)) = “” Then ‘if there is a trailing forwardslash
FileName = arURL(UBound(arURL) -1)
Else
filename = arURL(UBound(arURL))
End If
‘Get temp folder location
Dim oFS, TempDir
Set oFS = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
Set TempDir = oFS.getSpecialFolder(2)
Wscript.Echo TempDir & “\” & FileName
FileSaveLocation = TempDir & “\” & FileName

‘ Fetch the file
Dim oXMLHTTP, oADOStream
Set oXMLHTTP = CreateObject(“MSXML2.XMLHTTP”)
oXMLHTTP.open “GET”, DownloadUrl, false
oXMLHTTP.send()
If oXMLHTTP.Status = 200 Then
Set oADOStream = CreateObject(“ADODB.Stream”)
oADOStream.Open
oADOStream.Type = 1 ‘adTypeBinary
oADOStream.Write oXMLHTTP.ResponseBody
oADOStream.Position = 0 ‘Set the stream position to the start
If oFS.Fileexists(FileSaveLocation) Then oFS.DeleteFile FileSaveLocation
Set oFS = Nothing
oADOStream.SaveToFile FileSaveLocation
oADOStream.Close
Set oADOStream = Nothing
End if
Set oXMLHTTP = Nothing
End Function

( REPLY )
quux
November 7th, 2008 - 04:38

Something’s up with WP. When I try to post a link to a better-formatted version of the script above, I get redirected to a blank page. Sorry if I just dumped like 20 bogus posts into your approval queue (if you have one).

( REPLY )
Dan
December 1st, 2008 - 23:16

Perfect, just what I was looking for.

( REPLY )
Otoman
December 12th, 2008 - 16:52

Can we download a file form Website with BAtch file. without using external command or Functions
Thankx

( REPLY )
Bruce
December 23rd, 2008 - 23:03

Beautiful – thank you very much.

( REPLY )
Chris
January 4th, 2009 - 14:01

Fantastic script, just does what I need.

By the way, virus alert can be avoided if “Microsoft.XmlHttp” is used instead of “MSXML2.XMLHTTP”.

Thank you very much!

( REPLY )
Catfish
January 30th, 2009 - 15:03

Nice script, quux! Functional and well written. Thanks for posting.

( REPLY )
Kranie
March 14th, 2009 - 09:06

Very nice footwork indeed! This was just was I needed for a project at work.

You see, we need to download multiple files from our Intranetserver when a new user logs into a given machine, so with a few tweaks, I was able to implement this into out logonscript.

For the sake of professional courtesy, I credited your work in the comment-header of my script, with a link to this site.

( REPLY )
jy
April 12th, 2009 - 07:13

How can i save an image from the website? or just save the whole webpage if that’s difficult?

( REPLY )
kellogs
April 15th, 2009 - 10:24

May I know how to execute a file instead of saving it?

Without prompting?

I am trying to implement a script which user can call a file and execute it

( REPLY )
Malo
May 27th, 2009 - 05:56

Thanks Chrissy this snippet of code saved me from some major headaches, works extremely with a bit of modification it will download from SharePoint document libraries using vbs. Very nice thanks again.

Mal

( REPLY )
AyrA
June 8th, 2009 - 03:38

Here a sample script: it allows to download files and to check, if a File is existant on a Server:
—–
OPTION EXPLICIT

CONST strURL = “http://ayra.ch/default.asp”
CONST strTarget = “U:\Desktop\default.asp”

IF ExistFile(strUrl) THEN
CALL DownloadFile(strUrl,strTarget)
ELSE
CALL MsgBox(“Datei nicht gefunden”)
END IF

SUB DownloadFile(BYVAL URL,BYVAL Target)
DIM objXMLHTTP
DIM objADOStream
DIM objFSO

SET objXMLHTTP = CreateObject(“MSXML2.XMLHTTP”)

CALL objXMLHTTP.open(“GET”, URL, FALSE)
objXMLHTTP.send()

IF objXMLHTTP.Status < 400 THEN
SET objADOStream = CreateObject(“ADODB.Stream”)
objADOStream.Open
objADOStream.Type = 1 ‘Binär

objADOStream.Write objXMLHTTP.ResponseBody
objADOStream.Position = 0 ‘Beginn von Stream

SET objFSO = Createobject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
IF objFSO.Fileexists(Target) THEN
CALL objFSO.DeleteFile(Target)
END IF
SET objFSO = NOTHING

CALL objADOStream.SaveToFile(Target)
objADOStream.Close
SET objADOStream = NOTHING
END IF

SET objXMLHTTP = NOTHING
END SUB

FUNCTION ExistFile(BYVAL URL)
DIM objXMLHTTP
DIM objADOStream
DIM objFSO

SET objXMLHTTP = CreateObject(“MSXML2.XMLHTTP”)

CALL objXMLHTTP.open(“HEAD”, URL, FALSE)
objXMLHTTP.send()

IF objXMLHTTP.Status < 400 THEN
ExistFile=TRUE
ELSE
ExistFile=FALSE
END IF
SET objXMLHTTP = NOTHING
END FUNCTION
—–

( REPLY )
wp
June 10th, 2009 - 03:38

Thanks, man! this is really what i am looking for. It’s working great at my XP Pro.
I prefer to put the download file at my desktop, thus I use

Set shell=CreateObject(“Wscript.shell”)
strHDLocation = shell.Specialfolders.Item(“Desktop”)&”\file.zip”

It’s great.
Will try on vista system.

( REPLY )
VC
July 9th, 2009 - 10:43

Will this work with excel files on a web server?

http://www.abc.def/ghi/jkl/mno.xls. This kind of link prompts to save/open from my browser.

Thanks,
Vc.

( REPLY )
Ajay
October 13th, 2009 - 07:07

thank you, it saved my huge time.

thank you so much.

( REPLY )
Sam
October 20th, 2009 - 12:37

Malo, how can you tweak this code to download a file from a SharePoint Document Library? Do you have an example you can post here? Thanks!

( REPLY )
Sam
October 21st, 2009 - 11:22

Never mind, Malo… I just discovered that all of my frustration has been due to the SharePoint server blocking MDB files for security reasons. GRRRR!!!! I renamed the file to a TXT file instead of an MDB file and uploaded the TXT version to sharepoint. The script worked just fine as is. Thanks for the script!

( REPLY )
Seb
October 28th, 2009 - 02:00

is it feasible to add an authentication part into the script if a username & pwd is required?!?
thanks!

( REPLY )
Earl Russell
November 2nd, 2009 - 09:20

I am developing a website and need to allow some files to be download by viewers of the website. These files are .XLS (Excel), PDF and ZIP (combinations of XLS and PDF). Iwould like to be able to download them without the usual “Open”, “Save” or “Cancel” dialog.
I also need to work arount the Server 2003 4mB limit problem.
Do you have something or would you be willing to develope something for a fee? If so what would you charge?

( REPLY )
Fredrik Jansson
November 12th, 2009 - 14:20

Thanx Chrissy!! Saved me som troublish time… You’re the best!!

( REPLY )
Fredrik Jansson
November 12th, 2009 - 14:25

I will dedicate this function to you!

Public Function ChrissyFileFetch(strFileURL, strHDLocation)
[...your code...]
End Function

See U!

( REPLY )
Chrissy
November 12th, 2009 - 18:14

haha thanks, Fredrik!

( REPLY )
Chrissy
November 12th, 2009 - 18:15

Hey Earl,
Sorry, my plate is full currently. :\

Chrissy

( REPLY )
Eric
November 13th, 2009 - 12:05

Great Script. My issue is that I do not have just one file such as file.zip to down load, I need to download several thousand image files on the fly. I have the URL paths and photo names to each in my database already so I need to dynamically populate the script usign T-Sql. I figure I need to use the FOR EACH…NEXT but I am not getting this done correclty

( REPLY )
Eric
November 13th, 2009 - 15:54

actaully I figured it out.

( REPLY )
Rakesh
November 26th, 2009 - 00:36

Hello,

I am trying to download a word document from sharepoint using the URL, but a corrupted file is being downloaded. I have used the same code as given above. Please anyone help me how to download file from sharepoint.

( REPLY )
Tom Armstrong
December 3rd, 2009 - 14:05

Nice script, Chrissy. Helped solve some problems. Thanks!

Seb, I added/changed Chrissy’s script to do http Basic Authentication like this.

key = base64_encode( username & “:” & password )
xmlhttp.open “GET”, url, False, username, password
xmlhttp.setRequestHeader “Authorization”, “Basic ” & key
xmlhttp.send

where base64_encode is a sub to do base64 encoding.

( REPLY )
Amit
December 8th, 2009 - 05:02

Hi All,

Realy great script, but my question is “How to download files (xls) from web link that require SSO authentication”. Please help me out.

I tried using the code above, and passed sso id and password, but its downloaded the Login page in excel.

Please provide some hint, thanks in advance.

Thanks & Regards
Amit

( REPLY )
cheh
December 9th, 2009 - 06:59

wow, you rule!

( REPLY )
Max
January 18th, 2010 - 12:30

How to rewrite a file in the destination?

( REPLY )
Kavitha
February 9th, 2010 - 00:57

Excellent Script……I am able use it to automate downloading list of PDF files…..from webpages…

( REPLY )
Saggy
February 10th, 2010 - 16:19

THANKS A BUNCH CHRISSY.

THIS IS VERY VERY SIMPLE SCRIPT AND WORKS GREAT.

YOU ROCK!!!

( REPLY )
Jason
February 24th, 2010 - 01:26

Is there a way to download a file in bits and pieces ? I have a file 0.5GB and it continue getting out of memory errors. Is there a way to page files or so ?

( REPLY )
elaine cant
April 29th, 2010 - 10:51

i have lost my vb scrpit of my computer x

( REPLY )
Rafael
June 1st, 2010 - 13:41

Thanks a bunch I will try it out!

( REPLY )
Anand
June 3rd, 2010 - 06:32

Thank you Chrissy..

It helped me a lot.. Keep doing the gud job…

( REPLY )
Maurits
August 9th, 2010 - 09:56

Thanks Chrissy and Tom!
This really helped me too!

( REPLY )
Prakash
August 23rd, 2010 - 05:36

Very much useful, Thanks a lot… !!

( REPLY )
Wolfgang
August 25th, 2010 - 08:23

Thank you very much for this giant tool. It’s the shortest but also the best working solution for my problem to download a xls-file automatically from a SharePoint document library.

( REPLY )
John
October 22nd, 2010 - 01:30

This is definitely handy for making quick work of basic downloads.

For those of you looking for something more advanced with authentication etc…check out cURL. Its available as a library or a command line executable and it has options galore.

( REPLY )
Hervé
October 26th, 2010 - 14:06

Thank you Chrissy, you made my day ! I was “webside” for years (and so my VB scripting was far far away). Actually I needed to copy just a few icons (always local with VB) for my “clouds shortcuts generator” ! Et si t’es fière d’être Cajun tape dans tes mains ! Parole de Français !

( REPLY )
Systemfire
December 23rd, 2010 - 11:52

Great script!!!! Thanks….

( REPLY )
Rodrigo Motta
January 17th, 2011 - 13:15

obrigado. script perfect!!

( REPLY )
Raul
January 20th, 2011 - 16:31

Excelent!!just what i was looking for!! workd great, thanks

( REPLY )
Vinayak
March 17th, 2011 - 09:28

Works very well for me . Awesome script !

( REPLY )
ununtu_warrior
March 24th, 2011 - 10:18

Cool thanks!

( REPLY )
tttt
May 20th, 2011 - 19:23

Good script

( REPLY )