What if you press some key other than ENTER? No big deal: the value of the key you pressed will appear on screen, as will the values of any other keys you press. StdIn sits there until you press the ENTER key as soon as you press ENTER, the script resumes. What this script does is display a message on screen, and then use StdIn (found only in WSH 5.6, which means this script runs only if you have WSH 5.6 installed) to wait for the user to input data from the command line. This isn’t exactly what you wanted, but it will work: strMessage = “Press the ENTER key to continue. However, we can give you some code that will sit and wait until you press the ENTER key on the keyboard (and, yes, it has to be the ENTER key). We can’t replicate the pause command, in which the computer sits and waits until you press any key on the keyboard. But we do have a consolation prize for you. We know: that wasn’t exactly the answer you were hoping to get. Combine that with a limited ability to interact with the command line, and you end up with a scripting environment that can’t replicate the functionality of the pause command. The problem is that Windows Script Host isn’t designed to be an event-driven environment in other words, WSH doesn’t know how to sit around and wait until an event (such as a key being pressed) occurs. OK, there might be a goofy workaround of some kind, but off the top of our heads we couldn’t find one. But guess what: there isn’t a way to replicate this function in a script. I bet there’s a really cool way to do Press any key in a script.” To tell you the truth, we would have thought that way, too.

No doubt many of you are thinking, “Wow, scripting is so much better and so much more powerful than batch files. Anyone interested in taking a walk down memory lane can try this simple little batch file to see how it all worked: echo off

As soon as you pressed a key – any key – the batch file would resume again. All you had to do back then was insert a pause command in the middle of the batch file at that point, the batch file would halt and – like a faithful old dog – just sit there and wait for you to press a key on the keyboard. Sigh ….īack in the old days “Press any key to continue” was a cornerstone of nearly every batch file ever written. Excuse us for a second while we sigh and think about the good old days. Boy, this question takes us back: “Press any key to continue,” along with “Abort, Retry, or Fail,” has to be one of the most famous phrases in computing history. Hey, Scripting Guy! I would like to be able to pause my script, then have it resume as soon as the user presses any key on the keyboard.

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