Resource Kit is a term used by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

for a set of software resources and documentation released for their software products, but which is not part of that product. Resource kits offer supplementary resources such as technical guidance, compatibility and troubleshooting information, management, support, maintenance and deployment guides and multipurpose useful administrative utilities, which are available separately.

Overview

The most common form of the Resource Kits are as a large book or box set of books which come with CD-ROM(s), both of which have been supplemented in some cases such as the Resource Kits for Windows NT Server versions 3.51 and 4.0 and

Windows 2000 Server Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...

. The text of the Resource Kit books are also available with versions of the

Microsoft Developer Network Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

(MSDN) CD-ROMs, and a large subset to complete set of the tools included in the kits can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site. The tools can include everything from extra commands for the command line to general interest programmes like 3D Paint to network-related tools to performance monitoring tools to interpreters for programming languages like

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...

, Rexx, and others to interoperability tools like Windows versions of some

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

commands and shells. The Resource Kits, especially in the case of the Windows NT-2000 stream of operating systems, also include third-party software like various versions of

Crystal Reports Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application marketed to small- and medium-sized businesses by SAP. History Terry Cunningham and the Cunningham Group originated the software in 1984. Crystal Services Inc. marketed the product (origin ...

and PowerDesk. Typically, Microsoft releases resource kits after every major version of Microsoft Windows,

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...

or another major product. Resource kits have also been released for

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...

, BackOffice and other software. Those seeking Windows-Unix interoperability in various forms can also use an unrelated software product,

Windows Services For Unix Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) is a discontinued software package produced by Microsoft which provided a Unix environment on Windows NT and some of its immediate successor operating-systems. SFU 1.0 and 2.0 used the MKS Toolkit; starting with ...

, which contains such items as the

Interix Interix was an optional, POSIX-conformant Unix subsystem for Windows NT operating systems. Interix was a component of Windows Services for UNIX, and a superset of the Microsoft POSIX subsystem. Like the POSIX subsystem, Interix was an environment ...

C and Korn shells, ActiveState's

ActivePerl ActivePerl is a distribution of Perl from ActiveState (formerly part of Sophos) for Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX. A few main editions are available, including: Community (free, for development use only), and several paid tiers u ...

and many other Posix-compliant tools and additions to the operating system. This package is sometimes confused with being a Resource Kit for Unix. The Microsoft Office resource kits are also relevant to the versions of these office suites for the MacIntosh. The Resource Kit tools mainly help administrators streamline management tasks such as troubleshooting

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

issues, configuring networking and security features, managing

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of Process (computing), processes and Windows service, services. Initially, Active D ...

and automating application deployment. The resource kits are also geared towards "power users" and contain other tools such as extra commands for the Windows batch/shell environment, programming aids, database tools, and miscellaneous tools. Interpreters for programming languages such as

, Rexx,

KiXtart KiXtart is a closed source free-format scripting language for Windows. It is described as a logon script processor and enhanced batch scripting language by the official website. Its name is a portmanteau of "kick start". Overview KiXtart is devel ...

awk AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems. The AWK lang ...

and a version of the Unix Korn shell are available with many of the operating system Resource Kits, including those for both the Windows 95-98 and Windows NT-2000 streams of operating systems.

Windows Resource Kits

Windows Resource Kit was introduced with

Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predeces ...

in 1991 and has since been released for every Windows version, except for

Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...

Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...

and

Windows 98 Second Edition Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

. A Resource kit for

MS-DOS 6.22 MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

was released in 1992. Resource Kits were also not produced for Microsoft's two non-Windows operating systems,

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

(prior to version 3.0) and

Xenix Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and ...

mainly because they were not actively promoted after 1991. With the Windows NT-2000 stream of operating systems, separate kits are released for the Workstation (or Professional) and Server versions thereof; the latter's documentation is a box set of four to a dozen or so books in each case whereas a single large book comes with the former as well as for the Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 to Windows 98 Resource Kits.

Windows 9x family

The

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

Resource Kit documentations and tools were available free of charge and a Resource Kit Sampler was included on the respective Windows installation CD-ROM discs. Resource Kit tools can generally be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center free of charge, while the technical guidance and information is released in the form of

Microsoft Press Microsoft Press is the publishing arm of Microsoft, usually releasing books dealing with various current Microsoft technologies. Microsoft Press' first introduced books were ''The Apple Macintosh Book'' by Cary Lu and ''Exploring the IBM PCjr H ...

books. The CD-ROM discs accompanying the books, contain electronic versions of the books and include the Resource Kit tools and utilities, some of which may be exclusive.

Windows NT family

The Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kits (Workstation and Server) contained a particularly large number of tools and utilities as well as third-party software. The tools included in these kits for command-line use are considered by many Windows NT shell programmers to be essential to getting the full use of the facility. In the past, Microsoft used to release supplements for some Resource Kits which offered revised and new tools and resources. Microsoft released two supplements for the Windows NT 3.51 Server Resource Kit, four supplements for the Windows NT 4.0 Server Resource Kit and one supplement for the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit. Some of these utilities (such as

robocopy Robocopy, for "Robust File Copy", is a command-line directory and/or file replication command for Microsoft Windows. Robocopy functionally replaces Xcopy, with more options. Created by Kevin Allen and first released as part of the Windows NT 4.0 ...

and

takeown Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of both the Windows Setup and the Window ...

) later shipped as part of

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

and

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

. Others were included in later Resource Kits. Older Resource Kits are no longer available from Microsoft but can in most cases be ordered from booksellers. The

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...

Resource Kit also contains over 300 utilities. For

and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...

, over 120 tools and utilities have been updated. The Windows disc for Windows 2000, Windows XP and later operating systems also includes a set of tools known as Windows Support Tools. Many of the support tools are also included in the Resource Kit, some being updated versions of past Resource Kit tools. The Microsoft web site has downloads of Windows 2000/XP era tools which are in addition to those in the standard kits or updated version of the ones shipping in the Resource Kits. Windows XP Professional Resource Kit, Third Edition was released after Windows XP Service Pack 2. All of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are available for download free of charge. There have been no native 64-bit resource kit tools produced and existing 32-bit resource kit tools are not supported on x64 platforms. The text of the all of the Resource Kit books is included in the

MSDN Library Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

CD/DVD-ROM sets. Full implentations of MSDN contain all of the Resource Kits in text or HTML format as well as some of the others, full documentation for Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Back Office as well as all of the operating systems covered. In 2007, Microsoft released the Windows Vista Resource Kit. In 2008,

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on F ...

Resource Kits was released and Windows Vista Resource Kit, Second Edition was updated for Service Pack 1. The Windows Vista Resource Kit ships with several sample VBScripts and few PowerShell scripts. Microsoft has also released Resource Kits for

Group Policy Group Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems (including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2003+) that controls the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. G ...

, Windows security,

Terminal Services Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session on a remote computer or virtual machine ...

and

Internet Information Services Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NN ...

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

Resource Kit was released on September 14, 2009. Microsoft has announced that new unsupported Resource Kit tools will not be provided for current and future operating systems.

Other resource kits

The Office Resource Kit and tools are included on the respective Office CD/DVD and/or separately. The tools are also available for download from Microsoft web site. Microsoft has also released Resource Kits for

Windows Media Windows Media is a discontinued multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit (SDK) with several application programming interfaces (API) and a number of prebuilt techn ...

Back Office A back office in most corporations is where work that supports ''front office'' work is done. The front office is the "face" of the company and is all the resources of the company that are used to make sales and interact with customers and client ...

and several server products such as

SharePoint SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage v ...

and

Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...

. The

PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-sou ...

team has released a Resource Kit PowerShell Pack, a collection of PowerShell modules that adds over 700 scripts to those already present in Windows 7.

References

External links

Windows NT Workstation Resource Kits

Download the Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tools

Download Windows XP SP2 Support Tools

Download Windows XP SP2 Deployment Tools

Download the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools

Download Windows Server 2003 SP2 Support Tools

Web Resources of Windows Resource Kit

Resource kits list with descriptions
{{Microsoft Windows administration