Visual Basic is a third-generation programming language based on BASIC; written by Microsoft. Its applications inculde scripting for Microsoft Office with the ability to write significant apps that use Excel and Access. It can also be used by itself with the Windows Scripting Host bulit into Windows. VB scripts have the .vbs extension and file assocations are setup by default to run the script when double-clicked although some error messages may not appear unless you run it in cmd: cscript scriptname.vbs .

Write/Append/Log to a text file

This script will query the user for a particular file and then create/append the line "Current time:" followed by the current time:

Dim strFile, objFSO, objFile
strFile = InputBox ("Enter File Name",,"C:\\MyFile.Txt")
Const ForAppending = 8
set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFile, ForAppending, True)
objFile.WriteLine("Current time: " & Now)
objFile.Close
MsgBox "Done"

In some situations the above code will not work if it is in a loop, the code below can be used in a loop and writes to a text file the current time and a log entry

Dim objLogfile, objFSO, strLogFile
strFile = "c:\\example.log"
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
For each Item in Example.list
  Set objLogFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strLogFile, 8, True)
  objLogFile.Writeline Now & " log entry"
  objLogFile.Close
Next