A Resource Kit is a term used by Microsoft 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 multi-purpose useful administrative tools and utilities and are available separately. Typically, Microsoft releases resource kits after every major version of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office or a major server product.
Resource kits have also been released for other non-Microsoft operating systems. The tools are mainly to help administrators streamline management tasks such as troubleshooting operating system issues, managing Active Directory, configuring networking and security features and automating application deployment. The resource kits are also geared towards "power users" and contain other tools such as programming aids, database tools, and miscellaneous tools. Interpreters for programming languages such as Perl, Rexx, KiXtart, awk and a version of the Unix Korn shell are available on many of the operating system Resource Kits.
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Windows Resource Kits
The Windows Resource Kit was introduced with Windows 3.0 in 1991 and has since been released for every Windows version with the exception of Windows Me, Windows CE, and Windows 98 Second Edition. A Resource kit for MS-DOS 6.22 was released in 1992.
The Windows 95 and Windows 98 resource kit documentation and tools were free of cost and were included on the respective Windows installation CD-ROM. Most resource kit tools are usually free of cost and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center, while the technical guidance and information is released in the form of a purchasable Microsoft Press book. The CD-ROM accompanying the book, contains an electronic version of the book and includes the tools and utilities, some of which are sometimes exclusive.
The Windows NT 4.0 resource kit contained a large number of tools and utilities. In the past, Microsoft used to release supplements for resource kits which offered revised and new tools and resources. Microsoft released 4 supplements for the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit and 1 supplement for the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit. Some of these utilities later shipped as part of Windows XP and Windows Vista. Others were included in later resource kits. Older resource kits are no longer available.
The Windows 2000 resource kits also contain over 300 utilities.[1] For Windows Server 2003, over 120 tools and utilities have been updated.[2] The Windows XP resource kit includes only support and deployment tools and documentation.
In 2007 and 2008 respectively, Microsoft released the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Resource Kits. Microsoft has also released resource kits for Group Policy, Windows security, Active Directory, Terminal Services and IIS 7. The Windows Vista Resource Kit ships with several sample VBScripts and few PowerShell scripts.
The Windows 7 Resource Kit was released on 14 September 2009. [3] Microsoft has announced that new unsupported resource kit tools will not be provided for current and future operating systems, [4] however the PowerShell team has released a Resource Kit PowerShell Pack, [5] a collection of PowerShell modules that adds over 700 scripts to those already present in Windows 7.
The Microsoft web site has downloads of Windows 2000/XP era tools which are in addition to those in the standard kits.
The text of the Resource Kit books are included in the MSDN Library CD/DVD-Rom sets
Other resource kits
The Office Resource Kit and tools are included on the respective Office CD/DVD. The tools are also downloadable from Microsoft.com.
Microsoft has also released, in the past, resource kits for Internet Explorer, Windows Media, Internet Information Services, Back Office and several server products such as SharePoint, Exchange etc.
References
- ^ Windows 2000 Resource Kits
- ^ Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit
- ^ Windows 7 Resource Kit: Microsoft Press blog
- ^ Are Resource Kits Dead? NOPE!
- ^ Introducing the Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack
External links
- Windows Vista Resource Kit information
- 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 updates for Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
- Download Windows Server 2003 SP2 Support Tools
- Windows Deployment and Resource Kits
- Resource kits list with descriptions
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