Resource Kit

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 multipurpose useful administrative utilities, which are available separately. 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.

The text of the Resource Kit books are also available with versions of the Microsoft Developer Network (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, Rexx, and others to interoperability tools like Windows versions of some Unix commands and shells.