Another newbie

I just downloaded and installed MS. I was wondering if it is possible to do screen captures with MS? How could I go about using MS to mine data from the Internet? I would like to capture stock prices and populate cells in an Excel spreedsheet. I see MS supports DDEpoke. How can I scrape specific data from an HTTP representation, say the Yahoo Quicken stock pages?
Also, can MS run scripts completely in a stealth mode? What I mean is, not to have an icon in the task-bar. The only way I think of is to purchase the version that compiles exe files and have Windows Taskmanager run the files. Any ideas?
Well, have a great weekend everyone. Thanks for your help.
All the best,
Greg