[kh99]

Hmm...that's strange - it works for me. I had this set up to test soimething else:

In a plugin at global_start

$criteriaDisplay = 5;
vB_Template::preRegister('header',array('criteriaDisplay' => $criteriaDisplay));

then in the header template:

<script type="text/javascript">
var criteriaDisplay = "{vb:raw criteriaDisplay}";
</script>

and in the html source:

<script type="text/javascript"> 
var criteriaDisplay = "5";
</script>

ETA: I have version 4.1.3, maybe there was some problem before that version.