HTTP GET in VBS

Is there a way to perform an HTTP GET request within a Visual Basic script? I need to get the contents of the response from a particular URL for processing.

Dim o
Set o = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")
o.open "GET", "http://www.example.com", False
o.send
' o.responseText now holds the response as a string.

You haven't at time of writing described what you are going to do with the response or what its content type is. An answer already contains a very basic usage of MSXML2.XMLHTTP (I recommend the more explicit MSXML2.XMLHTTP.3.0 progID) however you may need to do different things with the response, it may not be text.

The XMLHTTP also has a responseBody property which is a byte array version of the reponse and there is a responseStream which is an IStream wrapper for the response.

Note that in a server-side requirement (e.g., VBScript hosted in ASP) you would use MSXML.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0 or WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1 (which has a near identical interface).

Here is an example of using XmlHttp to fetch a PDF file and store it:-

Dim oXMLHTTP
Dim oStream

Set oXMLHTTP = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP.3.0")

oXMLHTTP.Open "GET", "http://someserver/folder/file.pdf", False
oXMLHTTP.Send

If oXMLHTTP.Status = 200 Then
    Set oStream = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
    oStream.Open
    oStream.Type = 1
    oStream.Write oXMLHTTP.responseBody
    oStream.SaveToFile "c:\somefolder\file.pdf"
    oStream.Close
End If

If you are using the GET request to actually SEND data...

check: http://techhelplist.com/index.php/tech-tutorials/37-windows-troubles/60-vbscript-sending-get-request

The problem with MSXML2.XMLHTTP is that there are several versions of it, with different names depending on the windows os version and patches.

this explains it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269238

i have had more luck using vbscript to call

set ID = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
IE.visible = 0
IE.navigate "http://example.com/parser.php?key=" & value & "key2=" & value2 
do while IE.Busy.... 

....and more stuff but just to let the request go thru.