HTML Applications (HTAs) are surprisingly powerful tools. An HTA is essentially just a web page, but instead of having a .html or .htm extension, it has a .hta extension.  When you doubleclick a .hta file on a Windows computer, it launches in mshta.exe, which is basically a simple web browser with one special ability.  It can execute local scripts, something a regular web page cannot do.  For this reason, it’s an ideal way to easily create a GUI for your scripts.

I’ve posted a handful of HTAs below that I find useful, but I’ve separated each script into its own file to make things a bit clearer in this post.  You could easily combine numerous scripts into a single HTA if you are so inclined. 

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Retrieve a graphical representation of SQL databases on a server and display how much space is used in each database file

SQL 2000 had a view that was similar to this, but you could only see it for one database at a time. In SQL 2005, they removed it altogether, so here is a way you can get the same results using an HTA.  There is also an option to export the report straight to Excel.  To connect to a default instance, enter the server name or IP.  To connect to a named instance, use ServerName\InstanceName.  To connect to a SQL Express instance, use ServerName\SQLEXPRESS.

Download – Get_SQL_DB_Sizes.hta

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Retrieve disk space from a remote computer

In order to retrieve the disk space breakdown on a remote computer, your user account will need to be in the local administrators group on the remote machine.

Download – GetDiskSpace.hta

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Retrieve SQL backup history

Here’s another HTA example of connecting to SQL.  This script retrieves database backup history information from the MSDB..backupset table.

I also have a T-SQL version of this script posted which you can check out here: T-SQL Backup History Script

Download – Get_SQL_Backup_History.hta

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Retrieve Model, Serial Number, RAM, OS, Last Boot Time and more

This HTA retrieves some general info from computers on your network.  Your user account needs to be in the local administrators group on the remote machine.

Download – Get_General_Info.hta

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Retrieve general database info from SQL

This HTA retrieves some general info about the databases on a SQL server.  This won’t work on SQL 2000 but will work on 2005 and 2008.

Download – Get_SQL_DBInfo.hta

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Retrieve SP_WHO2 and Input Buffer from SQL Server

Here’s another example of retrieving info from SQL Server.  The sp_who2 script will work on all three versions of SQL, but the InputBuffer script will only work on 2005 and 2008.

Download – Get_SQL_spwho2_and_InputBuffer.hta

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SQL Differential Backup Size Prediction

Sometimes it can be very handy to know how large a differential database backup will be before actually executing the backup.  This HTA will accurately estimate the differential backup size.  Credit goes to Darwin Hatheway for explaining how to do this here. However, since he didn’t complete the implementation, I did it myself.

Download – SQL Differential Backup Size Prediction - HTA

T-SQL Version – http://dougzuck.com/sql-differential-backup-size-prediction