I used VB a bit after a bit of linux/bash and I was super sad that MS never (even though it's not surprising[1]) marketed VB as a system customization language for Windows'es. It's not a great language, but at least it has some kinds of type, and with COM modules you can tap into just about anything in your OS (for better or worse of course). Bash felt like a string grep hell very fast to me.

And nowadays powershell seems a great replacement.

[1] of course Windows wasn't meant for tinkerers but for users/customers, developping was for the MSDN side of things, for which you'd agree to pay because you'd sell your creations I guess