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\n\tWhen Microsoft released Windows 3.1 in 1992, the included manual was quite slim. In order to get all the technical details you had to purchase the Microsoft Windows Resource Kit For Operating System Version 3.1, which fortunately only set you back $19.95. The 550 page manual contained 12 chapters and 4 appendices of detailed information on supporting and managing Windows 3.1.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tThe Resource Kit came with a single floppy disk that included 5 great utilities, which over the years became part of the Windows operating system, and enhancements for File Manager. There were also a bunch of Windows Write documents that contained supplemental information that was not included in the Windows Resource Kit manual.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tOnce you launched setup you were prompted to install the Windows Resource Kit in the root directory.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tYou could choose which components of the Windows Resource Kit that you wanted to install as well as whether you wanted to install them in separate Program Manager Groups.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tAs soon as you clicked the Continue button, the installation began and you could track the progress.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tOnce the installation was complete, you saw the new Windows Resource Kit group in Program Manager.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tThe Graphics Viewer utility allowed you to view graphics files that were in Bitmap, MetaFile, and Icon formats. You can think of the Graphics Viewer utility as the first iteration of the Windows Picture/Photo Viewer that are found in Windows XP and Windows 7
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tOnce you selected an image file, the image displayed in the main Graphics Viewer window, which as you can see included Previous and Next buttons to allow you to cycle through all of the available images.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIf you pulled down the Options menu, Graphics Viewer allowed you to set any files that were in Bitmap format as the desktop wallpaper—either centered or tiled.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tWindows 3.1 didn’t come with any real networking tools and the Network Assistant provided several tools for managing the network connections for both disk drives and printers. You could think of this tool as an early version of Network Neighborhood. As you can see, this utility consisted of three parts: Network Connections, Previous Connection List, and Network Utilities.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tYou can think of the Network Connections tool as an early version of the Map Network drive command that we now have in Windows Explorer.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tThe Previous Connection List allowed you to see and maintain a list of frequently used connections.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tThe Network Utilities provided you with options for viewing and configuring network specific information, such as the computer and workgroup names. At the bottom of the dialog box were the Options: Startup, Password, and Event Log.
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\n\tOn the Startup Settings dialog box you could configure certain network features to be enabled at startup, configure options for Enterprise networking, as well as set performance priority.
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\n\tWhen you accessed the Event Log Settings, you could pick which networking events that you wanted to log in the Event Log.
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\n\tThe SmartDrive Monitor provided an interface to the Windows 3.1’s SmartDrive 4.0 disk cache and displayed a graph showing Cache Hit Rate. Each column in this graph represented the percentage of \u201chits\u201d on the cache during the specified sampling frequency (the default is 500 msec). A hit occurs each time Windows looks to SmartDrive for information and finds it in the cache.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tUsing the options you could alter the Cache Hit Rate sampling frequency settings, enable a log file, as well as change the SmartDrive configuration in the Autoexec.bat file.
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\n\tThe SMARTDrive Monitor also displayed the Hit Rate when minimized.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tThe SysMeter (System Meter) displayed the current use of the User heap, the GDI heap, and system memory. The application displayed three bars that represented the percent-free of each of the three monitored areas.
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\n\tThe SysMeter also provided information while minimized.
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\n\tYou could say that TopDesk was the very first iteration of Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy. TopDesk displayed a window that contained all available desktops. All running applications appeared in the center block/desktop and you would then drag an application’s window to another desktop.
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\n\tOnce you had distributed applications to different desktops, you could then switch desktops by right clicking on desktop that you wanted.
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\n\tSince TopDesk provided a completely new way to use Windows, Microsoft provided a very nice animated, interactive demo that taught you how to use the utility. Keep in mind that the concept of and term Virtual Desktops was not very common back in 1992.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tFile Size Information was an extension to File Manager. Once installed, this extension added a menu to File Manager called Info.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tSelecting the File Size Information command revealed information about the selected item such as Number of Files, Number of Directories, and Total Disk Space. This add-on was especially useful for viewing the disk space occupied from the root directory and all its subdirectories.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tDid you install and use the Microsoft Windows 3.1 Resource Kit tools back in 1992?
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\n\tPlease take a moment to drop by the TechRepublic Community Forums and let us hear from you.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
My first computer was a Kaypro 16 \"luggable\" running MS-DOS 2.11 which I obtained while studying computer science in 1986. After two years, I discovered that I had a knack for writing documentation and shifted my focus over to technical writing.
