Print - Surprise! Microsoft Ships WinFS Beta 1

After spending the last year lowering expectations, Microsoft pulled a rabbit out of its hat Monday and released the first beta of WinFS, the company's upcoming data storage engine. Seen as a technical albatross of sorts to company outsiders, WinFS has nonetheless been under active development for years. And now, I'm told, Microsoft feels it's time to get it out in the world and garner developer feedback.

"WinFS is alive and kicking," Tom Rizzo, the director of SQL Server product management told me Monday afternoon. "We wanted to get it out there before the PDC [Professional Developers Conference 2005, in about two weeks] and give developers a chance to check it out and give us feedback at PDC and beyond."

According to Rizzo, the focus for WinFS hasn't changed: It's still the foundation for a rich relational file system engine for Windows. "With WinFS, we will provide rich new ways to organize and visualize data," he said. "And as a final piece, it's a platform. It's not just for end users: Developers can extend WinFS, integrate their applications with WinFS, synchronize data between their applications and WinFS, and build support for their own data types into WinFS, using full-featured, managed code APIs [application programming interfaces]."

What's new with the release of WinFS Beta 1 is that Microsoft is adding support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2). Indeed, Beta 1 only works on XP. When installed, you see a new top-level object in My Computer called WinFS Stores. Inside of this storage area, which can be accessed by any existing Windows application as if it were the native file system, you can create and organize individual data stores.

Microsoft designed WinFS Beta 1 for developers, so there really isn't a lot going on here for end users. However, it's interesting to see how well integrated the WinFS data stores are with Windows Explorer, and normal Windows applications such as Microsoft Word can store and retrieve documents there if desired. "[Legacy shell/application] integration is a major milestone," Rizzo confided. "It took months of work to make it seamless. Often with software, the simplest thing for users is complex underneath."

In the future, Microsoft plans to ship more betas or Community Technology Preview (CTP) versions of WinFS, and those releases will work with Windows Vista betas in addition to XP. When Windows Vista ships in late 2006, WinFS will still be in beta, but at a later time, the final release will be made available to Vista and XP users as an add-on, and probably for free. "We'll ship WinFS as we do the .NET Framework today," Rizzo added, "as an out of band update for Windows." Future versions will no doubt incorporate WinFS natively, but Rizzo declined to state whether it would ship as part of Longhorn Server, currently due in 2007.

Also, while Rizzo expects WinFS to morph into the Windows file system at some point, he doesn't see Microsoft replacing the drive letter-based system we use today with the the cleaner WinFS namespace any time soon. "Legacy application support will stop us from fully leaving the drive letter based file system behind," he told me. "However, we will likely extend WinFS in the future with a feature from SQL Server 2005 called mount points. With mount points, you will be able to mount WinFS data stores arbitrarily at any point in the file system. So we'll have mount points in the future. But we'll probably be stuck with drive letters for the next 10 to 20 years as well."

That was fast, Paul. I was just reading speculation on a windows for devices site. Good job on the speed.

Windows--for playing The Sims in your admin account while anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, and registry cleaner software runs in your system tray. Macs--for getting real work done.

Who cares? OS X Spotlight came out earlier this year. Apple already beat Microsoft to this punch. Nobody cares about Vista. It's going to flop because people don't want to waste money on a 3Ghz 512MB monster just to display shadowed windows on the screen (five years for shadows and blurry titlebars...CONGRATULATIONS!).

"OS X is simply better than Windows. Especially for power users." - Paul Thurrott "Longhorn is a trainwreck." - Paul Thurrott

"Also, while Rizzo expects WinFS to morph into the Windows file system at some point, he doesn't see Microsoft replacing the drive letter-based system we use today with the the cleaner WinFS namespace any time soon." Stuck with them for the next 10 to 20 years?!! So much for all that horseshit Paul's been writing about the "revolutionary" WinFS over at the Supersite getting rid of drive letters. Microsoft doesn't innovate squat. Everything in Vista is already in OS X. Yes, I'm a disgruntled Windows XP SP2 user. Get it together, Microsoft! Stop defending spammers in New Zealand and rewrite your OS!

The only big old major problem with OS X is, it is a mangy flee infested Tiger that needs to be updated immediately after its release to prevent it from being a vulnerability to its user base, examples include 10.4.1, 10.4.2 and expected 10.4.3

at the least it would be nice if Vista used the mounting system that OS X does, where drives appear dynamically and you eject them after use. so i don't have those stupid "Cannot read from disk--Abort, Retry, Cancel" dialogs that don't do anything no matter which button you click. all because i removed the CD a millisecond before Windows was done with it there are lots of things Microsoft is never going to fix that other systems are ten years ahead in...and it's starting to make people notice

"What's new with the release of WinFS Beta 1 is that Microsoft is adding support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2)." Yet another reason nobody's going to buy Vista or the monster machines needed to run it. Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, and .NET are all going to be out for Windows XP. And nobody buys a Microsoft product just for its interface, of which Vista's is going to suck as usual.

ROFL Welcome to Beta 1 of what Mac users already had months ago. And you still won't get a final product until after 2006! ROFLMAO

20 MORE YEARS OF DOS DRIVE LETTERS!!!!! LET'S HEAR IT FOR MICROSOFT INNOVATION, WOOHOO!!!!!

"Who cares? OS X Spotlight came out earlier this year. Apple already beat Microsoft to this punch." Man, I should have posted what I predicted your response would be. I was right on the money this time. Spotlight has nothing to do with Virtual Folders. That's what desktop search is. WinFS is a new document organization system. "20 MORE YEARS OF DOS DRIVE LETTERS!!!!!" I'm sorry the people in the PC camp don't just abandon things for "innovation". Maybe we like the idea of older programs being able to work. Besides, this way both camps will be happy. The people who want "mount points" can have them, and those who like the DOS drive access system will have it too. "Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, and .NET are all going to be out for Windows XP. And nobody buys a Microsoft product just for its interface, of which Vista's is going to suck as usual." .NET isn't an interface, WinFS isn't an interface, and I don't know much about indigo. Avalon has had a name change, and Indigo (aka Windows Communications Foundation, part of WinFX) is for communications.

"Everything in Vista is already in OS X." Boy are you gullible. I don't know even know where to start to tell you that you're wrong. Besides the fact that the product hasn't even come out yet (MS just threw a curveball with this WinFS thing, makes me think they might include it with the final Vista, as another surprise, but of course they'll deny that). Some Things Vista Has Over MAC OS X: .NET /w WinFX (easier/faster to code for), Better Raw Picture Support, Open-Architecture Friendly, Fresh New Desktop Theme (Interesting no one complains about Apple can put out a product that's very similar to the one they previously released. Where's the innovation in that?). Some things they share: Super-fast file searching (although Vista's is better, at least in how they implement it through the GUI). Improvments to windows: Supposedly new TCP/IP stack? Faster rendering engine for graphics, IE security bumped up, and who knows what else... (we haven't seen Beta 2 yet, ya know. That's where they gottta be hiding some stuff, if not in one of the RCs)

"Yes, I'm a disgruntled Windows XP SP2 user. Get it together, Microsoft! Stop defending spammers in New Zealand and rewrite your OS!" Yeah, that's a *GREAT* idea. Have them re-write everything so there are a bunch of NEW bugs. Even if they hire the worlds best programmers, they're still gonna have a lot of bugs to deal with most likely, if they re-wrote the OS, and plus that would delay things insanely.

For those of you that still don't know, NTFS supports mounting other disks and filesystems in one big tree at least since 5.0 (Windows 2000). Although Windows' GUI won't let you do it, it's also possible to use hard links from a folder to an other anywere in the namespace. See SysInternal utilities. This said, all mildly low level programs get fairly confused by this, like Windows Recycle Bin itself, which sometims won't let you move folders from mounted drives to the bin, or Symantec utilitied which cannot defrag, check, etc..., mounted disks with no letters attached. .fwyzard.

apple beat MS with spotlight lol. spotlight is a tool/service. Not a new file system. WINFS spanks spotlight so badly apple is going to blush.

does anybody care about what apple does or doesn't. I mean it's like caring what nintendo does or doesn't do. really. who cares!

You windows folks are just jealous and bitter. Windows is still a Kluge, and a sad one at that. Computers should help, not hinder. Come over to an incredibly great machine and OS. OS X kicks.

Here's the difference between Apple software and Microsoft software: Microsoft releases or updates a product. The product may have 5 new features and 3 bug fixes, but it's still called "ONE UPDATE". Apple releases or updates a product. The product may have 5 new features and 3 bug fixes, so lets call it "EIGHT UPDATES". Microsoft comes up with ideas that they will put in a future product. They tell everyone to get them all excited about it. Apple hears about these new ideas, and quickly shoves them in as a point release to an existing product. The version they put it is absolutely minimal, but hey - they beat Microsoft didn't they?!? Who cares if it is nowhere near as good as Microsoft's version. Microsoft releases bug fixes for existing products. They release a separate update for each bug. This gives you the choice to update one thing, or update all of them. This is why Microsoft says "WE HAVE FIVE NEW UPDATES". Apple shoves all there updates into one. You have no choice about it - you have to get all of them or none of them. Then they say "WE HAVE ONE SMALL UPDATE". Then you Mac retards say "HA! WE HAD ONE UPDATE, BUT MICROSOFT NEEDED EIGHT". Pitty that your _one_ update actually contained _fourty_four_ fixes... Windows: For compatibility with every program that Microsoft has ever supported, right back from DOS 3 programs and Windows 2 programs. Hardware support with nearly every single device on the planet. New technologies and ideas. MacOS: For looing at pretty bubbles and shadows. For requiring a virtual machine just to use programs that are only a couple of years old. For supporting sweet jack-all hardware (try pluggin in a USB wireless network adapter!!!). And soon, for requing a virtual machine just to run current programs because Apple thinks it is a good idea to (once again) completely change there hardware.

YOU ARE ALL NERDS!!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT GIRLS ARE? NOT ITS NOT A PICTURE ON YOUR COMPUTER YOU GOT FROM SOME DUMB **** SITE! LOSERS

WinFS is totally different technology than Spotlight. Spotlight is a search engine WinFS is not. WinFS is a storage system, a mixture of a relational database and a file system. There is no such a technology in Tiger. Kazi

What a fantastic thing this is. Whether y'all agree on Microsoft's innovation vs. legacy argument or not, this is the first MS development since XP that's actually caused some real debate. I like OS X a lot, and I like XP for different reasons. Does that make me Bi-Curious?

"I like OS X a lot, and I like XP for different reasons. Does that make me Bi-Curious? " No - it makes you a reasonable, normal person. Unlike the rest of the retards here who think that you can only like one or the other. Each has its benefits and drawbacks - live with it.

There is a difference between Spotlight and WinFS. While Spotlight is a service to allow you find stuff, WinFS is the actual file system underneath. The two can not be compared. WinFS can be compared to NTFS and to the Apple filesystem, whatever that is called. See here for more info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwinfs/html/winfs03112004.asp

WinFS is not just simply a file system, it's a more general storage system based on extensible schemas. A File System stores flat binary data in a file, WinFS stores primarily objects, in WinFS term: "Item". A traditional File System doesn't know what is inside a file, it sees only binary data. WinFS knows everything about the stored Items, not just metadata, every piece of information are known by the store engine. WinFS is far ahead of any kind of related technologies. Kazi

Microsoft can laugh last and be the first to take the big piece of cake, Who cares if Apple did it first.

"Man, I should have posted what I predicted your response would be. I was right on the money this time. Spotlight has nothing to do with Virtual Folders. That's what desktop search is. WinFS is a new document organization system." OMFG. Spotlight has Smart Folders, you idiot. A perfect example of Windows ignorance. "I'm sorry the people in the PC camp don't just abandon things for "innovation"." You don't like to abandon crap? ""Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, and .NET are all going to be out for Windows XP. And nobody buys a Microsoft product just for its interface, of which Vista's is going to suck as usual." .NET isn't an interface, WinFS isn't an interface, and I don't know much about indigo. Avalon has had a name change, and Indigo (aka Windows Communications Foundation, part of WinFX) is for communications."" OMFG, again. I didn't say .NET was an interface, I was referring to Aero since it will be the only new thing in Vista. And nobody buys Microsoft products for their interfaces. I WANT EVERYONE TO SEE THIS GUY'S POST AS AN EXAMPLE OF TYPICAL WINDOWS SHEEP IGNORANCE.

MORE WINDOWS IGNORANCE: "Some Things Vista Has Over MAC OS X: .NET /w WinFX (easier/faster to code for)" Cocoa is light years ahead of .NET "Better Raw Picture Support" LOL. OS X has superior RAW support and has for years. "Open-Architecture Friendly" LOL. This buzzword phrase doesn't even mean anything. "Fresh New Desktop Theme (Interesting no one complains about Apple can put out a product that's very similar to the one they previously released. Where's the innovation in that?)." That's all you've got? "Fresh New Desktop?" So you're paying $120 for a plastic-y window dressing of Windows XP? "Some things they share: Super-fast file searching (although Vista's is better, at least in how they implement it through the GUI)." No, it's not. That goofy Start menu search is hilarious and confusing for users. "Faster rendering engine for graphics" You mean hardware-accelerated, which OS X had in 2002. Next. "IE security bumped up" LOL. ANOTHER EXAMPLE: "apple beat MS with spotlight lol. spotlight is a tool/service. Not a new file system." WinFS isn't a filesystem either, dummy. It's a metadata service sitting on top of the existing NTFS filesystem. YOU GUYS NEED TO GET A CLUE! YOUR IGNORANCE MAKES WINDOWS USER LOOK IDIOTIC! ROFLMAO

OMFG. "There is a difference between Spotlight and WinFS. While Spotlight is a service to allow you find stuff, WinFS is the actual file system underneath." Completely, 100% *wrong*. WinFS is not the file system underneath. NTFS is still the filesystem, and WinFS is a SQL service running on top of it for metadata indexing. Repeat after me: WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S AN SQL BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S AN SQL BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S AN SQL BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S AN SQL BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S AN SQL BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S AN SQL BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE ON TOP OF NTFS.

"Fresh New Desktop Theme (Interesting no one complains about Apple can put out a product that's very similar to the one they previously released. Where's the innovation in that?)." What a dumbass. You think innovation means redressing your GUI? No wonder MIcrosoft is able to trick you into think Windows is new just by adding some plastic highlights. For the record, every release of OS X has had visual changes, but they have been subtle (most drastic was the change from 10.2 to 10.3, because Apple actually works under the hood to improve the OS. Read your post again. Innovation = new visual look? ROFLMAO.

"WinFS is not just simply a file system" It's not a filesystem at all. NTFS will continue to be the filesystem. WinFS is a background SQL service. "it's a more general storage system based on extensible schemas." Welcome to Apple Spotlight! "A File System stores flat binary data in a file, WinFS stores primarily objects, in WinFS term: "Item". A traditional File System doesn't know what is inside a file, it sees only binary data. WinFS knows everything about the stored Items, not just metadata, every piece of information are known by the store engine. WinFS is far ahead of any kind of related technologies."" Except for Apple Spotlight, which already does this! ROFLMAO! The funniest part is all these Windows posters "educating" everyone on metadata indexing storage like it's something new for Windows Vista when OS X Tiger already does it.

WINFS IS NOT A FILE SYSTEM. IT IS A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE LIKE APPLE SPOTLIGHT, RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILE SYSTEM. IT IS A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE LIKE APPLE SPOTLIGHT, RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILE SYSTEM. IT IS A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE LIKE APPLE SPOTLIGHT, RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILE SYSTEM. IT IS A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE LIKE APPLE SPOTLIGHT, RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILE SYSTEM. IT IS A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE LIKE APPLE SPOTLIGHT, RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILE SYSTEM. IT IS A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE LIKE APPLE SPOTLIGHT, RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS.

Repeat after me: "IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK. IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK. IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK. IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK. IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK. IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK. IF I GIVE A S H I T ABOUT THIS, I AM A MAJOR GEEK." Go find a woman, winfanboys. They're very interesting...better than your imagination, I promise you.

"Go find a woman, winfanboys. They're very interesting...better than your imagination, I promise you." I guarantee Mac users get laid way more often than Windows users. Mac users are creative, innovative, and attractive professionals who actually get real work done using their computers, while Windows users are angry, misinformed dorks who play The Sims 2 and Counter-strike on Friday nights using their parents' computers. WinFS is NOT a filesystem. It's an SQL metadata indexing service running in the background, just like Spotlight. Except that Spotlight is nicely integrated into the kernel providing a file notification system and is available now, not two years from now.

"OS"X?!? More like DesktopX, as it's no more an OS than KDE...both of which are nothing more than Graphical User Interfaces for Linux. Enough with the Mac-O-Riffic nonsense.

""OS"X?!? More like DesktopX, as it's no more an OS than KDE...both of which are nothing more than Graphical User Interfaces for Linux." Uh, OS X includes the Mach kernel, the BSD subsystem tied to it, and the Aqua interface on top of it. The whole shebang. As opposed to the ten years you morons were running Windows on top of crappy DOS and calling it an operating system (snicker). WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM, IT IS A BACKGROUND METADATA INDEXING SERVICE RUNNING ON TOP OF NTFS LIKE SPOTLIGHT.

Studies show that Windows users are smarter than Apple users. This site confirms it.

[QUOTE]Uh, OS X includes the Mach kernel, the BSD subsystem tied to it, and the Aqua interface on top of it. The whole shebang. As opposed to the ten years you morons were running Windows on top of crappy DOS and calling it an operating system (snicker).[/QUOTE] Actually NT4 came out in 95, so it's more like 5 years (yes I'm awareof the 9x/ME branch). Never the less "crappy DOS" or not, at least MS wrote it. MS also wrote the newer versions of the NT OS. Mac...On the other hand...admitted that they were to stupid to wite a truly modern OS, and let the "crew" at BSD (a *niX camp) do it for them.

Wow, it must suck for you guys to read over at the Supersite Paul's comparison between Vista and OS X and how OS X still looks and functions better.

YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WINDOWS USER IGNORANCE: "[Actually NT4 came out in 95, so it's more like 5 years (yes I'm awareof the 9x/ME branch)." Consumers were using the 9x series all through the 90s. NT barely worked and was too busy getting hacked to be taken seriously. "Never the less "crappy DOS" or not, at least MS wrote it. MS also wrote the newer versions of the NT OS." Microsoft didn't write DOS, they bought it in the early 80s. NT was also based on VMS, another operating system. They even hired the same guy, Cutler. "Mac...On the other hand...admitted that they were to stupid to wite a truly modern OS, and let the "crew" at BSD (a *niX camp) do it for them." I think you're mad that BSD rules all over Windows and that the source code for Darwin is freely available. Apple DID write a modern operating system. Aqua rules all over Windows, their security rules all over Windows, their interface rules all over Windows, and the OpenStep architecture that became Cocoa is the most advanced development system on the planet. .NET is smoke in the wind compared to it. I think you're insecure that Microsoft just purchases everything and repackages it with the word "Microsoft" in front of it. They did it with Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, DOS, Windows, Windows NT, their TCP/IP stack (stolen from BSD), their Antispyware and Antivirus software, their defrag program, their firewall...the list goes on and on and on. LOL. meanwhile, Apple's sales are skyrocketing while Microsoft's are down. Analysts predict only 35% of people will be using Vista by 2008. Not good.

"ever the less "crappy DOS" or not, at least MS wrote it. MS also wrote the newer versions of the NT OS." Aahahahahahaa...Microsoft bought DOS in 1980 and derived NT from the VMS operating system. And for Windows, they just ripped off all of the MacOS features like pulldown menus, icons, the whole desktop metaphor, the use of the mouse, the trash can, the start menu (really the Apple menu but moved to the bottom of the screen), etc. etc. etc. etc. Everybody hates Microsoft. Hell, your beloved Microsoft is over in New Zealand calling spam "an amazing vehicle of email advertising." THIS IS THE COMPANY MAKING YOUR OS, AND THEY SUPPORT SPAM!

[QUOTE]Wow, it must suck for you guys to read over at the Supersite Paul's comparison between Vista and OS X and how OS X still looks and functions better.[/QUOTE] Really? Why? One has already been released to the public, the other is only a beta...and the released product functions better (/is less buggy) ... Well Christ on a Crutch, I sure as hell hope so... However the simple fact that they are even being compaired should tell you something...

Microsoft is over in New Zealand calling spam "an amazing vehicle of email advertising." ...And...the statement was made in what context?!? The automobile is a great vehicle for transportation...But millions of people get killed in or by them every year. ...So lets ban all SPAM & cars. Unsolicited commercial Email is a great vehicle for advertising...Well Duh! have you l00ked at the cost of advertising these days?!? Is it fun? No. Is it "effective"? Obviously, or it wouldn't be happening. Oh and both MS & Apple ripped the GUI idea from Xerox.

"WinFS is NOT a filesystem. It's an SQL metadata indexing service running in the background, just like Spotlight. Except that Spotlight is nicely integrated into the kernel providing a file notification system and is available now, not two years from now." You have never seen the WinFS. WinFS is not a metadata indexing service. Spotlight is a metadata indexing service, it's true, but WinFS is not. WinFS knows everything about the stored information, not just metadata. Totally different approach. Please download the WinFS API and try it yourself before you write any statement. You have to store files in Spotlight with metadatas only, but you can store any kind of information in WinFS, not only files or metadatas. This is a huge difference.

If somebody wants to know, how does Spotlight work, and the Beos roots of the Spotlight: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/10

Do you people not understand that the drive-letter problem is not a Microsoft problem? Do you not realize it's an application problem? Do you not realize that using WinFS going forward that any NEW application can use it WITHOUT drive-letters? Why are you so hung up and bashing stuff you know nothing about?! Nothing you use on a PC today would work if they dropped drive-letters altogher. Any new app that uses WinFS will be able to be used without driver letters. And for all you people so proud of your "new" MAcs, remember that it's really a very old UNIX, older than Windows, that you're using. Apple was able to put one of many pretty faces on UNIX like so many other companies have done and are doing - like Sun. Apple gave up doing OSes because they couldn't cut it. So now all they do is tweak a very old operating system and put a pretty face on it. And since it's old it needs a ton of tweaking to be able to handle modern commputing needs. Get a clue.

So what is WinFS after all? The WinFS API starts with this: "WinFS is the next-generation relational file system for Microsoft Windows. Although file systems have seen numerous advancements over the last four decades, traditional file systems still lack the rich and powerful features for organizing and querying data in relational databases. As a critical piece of the Microsoft Integrated Storage initiatives, "WinFS" bridges the gap between traditional file systems and traditional relational databases." FAQ: - Is WinFS a new datastore engine? Yes - Can WinFS store .net objects? Yes - Can WinFS store plain files? Yes - Can WinFS store relations? Yes - Can WinFS store extensible metadata? Yes - Can WinFS extract metadata from any file type if a plugin exists? Yes - Can WinFS search files by metadata attributes? Yes - Is WinFS a file system? Yes - Is WinFS a relational database system? Yes - Is WinFS an object relational datastorage system? Yes WinFS contains all these features, it's a filesystem and a relation database and an object relational datastorage system, a total of these. Kazi

WinFS is nothing more than a background indexing service for metadata and relational schemas. It runs on top of plain old vanilla NTFS. Even OS X Tiger added support for arbitrary schema attributes directly in the filesystem itself. This will be useful for future versions of Spotlight, so it will be a true relational filesystem and not a simple background indexing service like WinFS. Spotlight already does most of that and will surpass that functionality next year in OS X Leopard, which will be out before WinFS goes final in 2007. As usual, Microsoft hypes the CRAP out of something years before release, then it comes out and is less than what everyone thought it would be, and Apple comes along with a superior product released nine months earlier. Right now, you're in the "hype the crap out of it" cycle for WinFS. WinFS is NOT a filesystem. It's just a background indexing service for schemas and metadata. God, think of what Apple will be introducing next year with OS X Leopard now that they already have a working Spotlight to start from. It's gotta suck being a Windows user these days. www.apple.com/switch

"...So lets ban all SPAM & cars." OMFG, a Micro$oftie is defending SPAM. You're hopeless. YES, BAN ALL SPAM. IT'S MY MAIL SERVER, NOT THEIRS.

"You have never seen the WinFS." Yes, I have. "WinFS is not a metadata indexing service." Yes, it is. "Spotlight is a metadata indexing service, it's true, but WinFS is not. WinFS knows everything about the stored information, not just metadata. Totally different approach. Please download the WinFS API and try it yourself before you write any statement." WinFS is just a relational storage engine that runs in the background on top of normal NTFS. Yes, it indexes metadata and relational data. Nothing more. "You have to store files in Spotlight with metadatas only, but you can store any kind of information in WinFS, not only files or metadatas. This is a huge difference." Same thing in Spotlight, and expect it to be used in Spotlight 2 when OS X Leopard comes out which will allow arbitrary schemas, relationships between files (so any images can be connected with, say, an addressbook contact and then you can pull search results up by seeing what files are associated with that contact). WinFS won't even be a finished product yet. Here, kid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS

MORE WINDOWS USER IGNORANCE: "WinFS is the next-generation relational file system for Microsoft Windows." It is not a filesystem. It is a relational indexing service that runs in the background on top of NTFS, just like Spotlight. " As a critical piece of the Microsoft Integrated Storage initiatives, "WinFS" bridges the gap between traditional file systems and traditional relational databases." Already done in Spotlight and in BeOS. "FAQ: - Is WinFS a new datastore engine? Yes - Can WinFS store .net objects? Yes - Can WinFS store plain files? Yes - Can WinFS store relations? Yes - Can WinFS store extensible metadata? Yes - Can WinFS extract metadata from any file type if a plugin exists? Yes - Can WinFS search files by metadata attributes? Yes" Spotlight already does every single one of those features, except for crappy .NET objects, of course. "- Is WinFS a file system? Yes" No, it is not. It runs on top of NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE FOR NTFS PARTITIONS. "- Is WinFS a relational database system? Yes - Is WinFS an object relational datastorage system? Yes" That's all WinFS is. A relational indexing service in the background. "WinFS contains all these features, it's a filesystem and a relation database and an object relational datastorage system, a total of these." It is not a filesystem. It's a background indexing service that runs on NTFS partitions, indexing metadata and relationships between schemas. That's why it's partly based on Yukon, the next version of SQL Server. PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELVES BEFORE BLATHERING ON ABOUT FUTURE MICROSOFT VAPORWARE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

"Do you people not understand that the drive-letter problem is not a Microsoft problem?" It is a Microsoft problem because they used drive letters for 15 years. "Nothing you use on a PC today would work if they dropped drive-letters altogher." That means there's a problem with the operating system, the APIs, and so on. "Any new app that uses WinFS will be able to be used without driver letters." Have fun waiting until 2007 to get any of these vaporware apps. "And for all you people so proud of your "new" MAcs, remember that it's really a very old UNIX, older than Windows, that you're using." Is this supposed to be bad? Time-tested code? Windows XP/Vista is based on NT, which came from VMS, an operating system over 20 years old. Any other dumbass comments you wish to make, you clueless Windowz kid? OS X runs on a BSD 5 subsystem, the latest updated version of a free UNIX started in the mid-80s by computer scientists at Berkeley. BSD powers most of the Internet. Windows NT is so bad, the army got hacked using it and switched over to OS X Server to host www.army.mil. "Apple was able to put one of many pretty faces on UNIX like so many other companies have done and are doing - like Sun." UNIX is the superior OS. "Apple gave up doing OSes because they couldn't cut it. So now all they do is tweak a very old operating system and put a pretty face on it. And since it's old it needs a ton of tweaking to be able to handle modern commputing needs." Can you describe ANY of this mysterious "ton of tweaking?" Oh, right, you're just talking out your *** because you don't know what you're talking about. You probably haven't programmed anything beyond PHP or Visual Basic. NeXTStep wrote the book on modern object-oriented operating system design with their OpenStep system, the most superior system for application design. This system because Cocoa on OS X. .NET doesn't even come close, because MS programmers suck Get a freakin' clue, you 14-year-old Windows kidz

uh, WinFS is just a service that runs on top of normal NTFS drives. it indexes metadata and relational schemas. i don't see how this is all that different from Apple Spotlight or what Apple is adding to Spotlight for OS X Leopard next year

"Nothing you use on a PC today would work if they dropped drive-letters altogher." ROFL. That's Microsoft's fault! They wanted an object-oriented filesystem in the early 90s called Cairo, but they never finished it. Microsoft is nothing but gas and vaporware. Windoze sheep just like to suck it all in because they don't want to lose their precious Direct X 9 gaming platform (even though OpenGL is far superior and is being used for the Playstation 3).

WinFS is NOT a filesystem, it's an indexing service for NTFS partitions that borrows code from Yukon SQL Server. It just indexes relational metadata. They were demonstrating it on the .NET Show last year. Apple already has a headstart on this stuff. WinFS is expected when, 2007 after Longhorn is released? Sorry, I can't call it "Windows Vista" because that name is just too stupid.

it should tell you something when even Intel jumped ship and went for Apple. see you in line for Intel-based Macs next year, kidz

HAHAHA, YOU GUYS ARE STILL USING A BIOS MADE IN 1982. YOUR LAPTOPS DON'T EVEN DO SLEEP MODE CORRECTLY. MACS ON THE OTHER HAND DO IT EVERY DAY. MAC USERS NEVER SHUT DOWN THEIR MACS. AND WHEN THEY DO, IT ONLY TAKES FOUR SECONDS TO GET TO THE DESKTOP.

From Wikipedia: "In computing, WinFS is the code name of a Windows storage subsystem, being developed by Microsoft for use on its Windows operating system. WinFS is not a file system, but a file storage subsystem that will run ontop of the NTFS file system, indexing the content of the drive. The codename WinFS stands for Windows Future Storage but will likely change before the technology is released."

Wow, well at least MS is getting on the band wagon with the rest of the world! FYI Linux/Unix OS's have had a similar FS to MS's new "innovative" FS for years now, longer than OS X ;)... And WinFS is a FILE SYSTEM, not a document holder or what ever someone called it...

"Cocoa is light years ahead of .NET" I would LOVE to see you back that claim up. ""Better Raw Picture Support" LOL. OS X has superior RAW support and has for years." And Vista's will supposedly be better. ""Open-Architecture Friendly" LOL. This buzzword phrase doesn't even mean anything." In other words, you can't remember a previous topic... You were ranting on about how great closed architectures were compared to open architectures, which *nix and Windows handle fine. ""Faster rendering engine for graphics" You mean hardware-accelerated, which OS X had in 2002. Next." Ignorant. It's not just hardware-acceleration that's making the rendering faster. The software itself was re-built (yeah, they probably used pieces from the old stuff). "WinFS isn't a filesystem either, dummy. It's a metadata service sitting on top of the existing NTFS filesystem." Who said it was? If you're attacking Kazi, that guy explained before-hand how it sat on top of NTFS. Next. "What a dumbass. You think innovation means redressing your GUI? No wonder MIcrosoft is able to trick you into think Windows is new just by adding some plastic highlights." I didn't say a new desktop theme was innovative. I said it's nice to have every once in awhile. Not a repackaging of the same thing. I expect more from Apple I guess... "WinFS is a background SQL service." It's more than just a background SQL service. Wrong. "I guarantee Mac users get laid way more often than Windows users. Mac users are creative, innovative, and attractive professionals who actually get real work done using their computers" Yeah... Just like people are more creative and intelligent than everyone else. Get over yourself :P. "OMFG, again. I didn't say .NET was an interface" Then why are did you make such a comment in a "supporting sentence" in your paragraph? "OMFG. Spotlight has Smart Folders, you idiot. " You must have misread what I said, which doesn't surprise me a bit :P.

"Aahahahahahaa...Microsoft bought DOS in 1980 and derived NT from the VMS operating system. And for Windows, they just ripped off all of the MacOS features like pulldown menus, icons, the whole desktop metaphor, the use of the mouse, the trash can, the start menu (really the Apple menu but moved to the bottom of the screen), etc. etc. etc. etc." Yep, they did buy QDOS. And they then improved it considerably (look at DOS 3.x, compare to 6.x. Err, on second thought, forget it. You would actually have to know something about DOS to see the differences there). Oh, and yes, Microsoft STOLE MacOS. That's why Microsoft's memory management in 9x sucked compared to the stuff in Mac OS... oh wait... That's why Windows only runs on a closed architecture... oh wait... By the way, thanks for not giving credit where it's due. shows that Xerox created icons in 1981.

"Spotlight already does every single one of those features, except for crappy .NET objects, of course." Attacking something you probably know nothing about, just because it's from "Microsoft". Sheepish and childish ^_^.

Btw, mr. "creative intelligent sir", you should know that the Mouse existed in 1968, before Apple even existed (as far as I know, anyways). Lemme guess, but they were the first to market it commercially? Nope. They might have been the first successful vendors with it, but they weren't the first.

"The Windows kernel is just a crappy clone of VMS anyway." I disagree. For a VMS clone, it seems to DOS-ish, first off. Secondly, it's not a crappy kernel either. Hardware abstraction (that's not a buzzword, look it up), multiple processor OR single processor support (different NTOSKRNLs), thread scheduling, ...other stuff I don't think I need to mention... the works. For a crappy kernel dude, it sure is stable. I rarely hear about kernel patches too (i'm talking about the REAL kernel, not the kernel32.dll that talks with it). Hows Mac OS X's kernel doing? Why is it that i've heard reports of programs bringing down the entire system (note: mac os x was mentioned above, not talking about Mac OS 9 or before)? I know, it was probably a driver issue. A DRIVER ISSUE?! I thought you said Mac OS X didn't have those because of it's closed architecture... whoops... :P

"Mac users are creative, innovative, and attractive professionals who actually get real work done using their computers." Replace Mac with Aryan. Notice something wrong with that racist statement (YOU SHOULD)? Looks like your restoring to propaganda to try and convert people to your Macs. You seem to eat your own dogfood too. A sheep that propagandizes...

Note: The previous comment was related to a "mac users are great, windows users blow" flamebait. I'm not saying "aryans" can't be creative, innovative, and attractive professionals.

Lots of things needed to correct. "- Is WinFS a file system? Yes No, it is not. It runs on top of NTFS. WINFS IS NOT A FILESYSTEM. IT'S A BACKGROUND INDEXING SERVICE FOR NTFS PARTITIONS" It's absolutely not true. WinFS serves files via traditional Win32 file APIS as well, for example: move "c:\test.txt" "\\localcomputername\defaultstore\test.txt" This command moves the test.txt file from the NTFS partition to the WinFS store. This command deletes the c:\test.txt from the NTFS partition and that file exists whithin the WinFS store only, you can't reach it via NTFS partition. There is a filesystem filter driver by the WinFS, which provides UNC file naming scheme. "Spotlight already does every single one of those features, except for crappy .NET objects, of course." Every data is a .Net object in WinFS. The mentioned file in the above example is System.Storage.GenericFile class. But you can store other kind of objects in WinFS it not must be a file, it must be a System.Storage.Entity descendant class, which is not a file. But you can define any kind of relations within those objects, but there are built in relations also. The file<->metadata relation is only one case, there are many others. Kazi

In addition to, you can't search files sitting on an NTFS partition via WinFS APIs. WinFS and NTFS are distinct stores from the API perspective. Technically a WinFS store sits on an NTFS partition, but there are no more connections. You can't reach NTFS files via WinFS API. You can reach files which sit in a WinFS stores only via WinFS APIs. Kazi

"The Windows kernel is just a crappy clone of VMS anyway" In my opinion it was the best decision what ever Microsoft made. VMS had a best kernel in that time. NT's kernel is absolutely reentrant but Unix kernels not on these days. For example the Linux kernel is not 100% reentrant today as well, and MAC OS X has the same problems. You can read the concurrency problems in MAC OS X kernel here: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/4 Kazi

WinFS SDK API Documentation: /"WinFS" as a File System Furthermore, the storage subsystem of an operating system must be able to serve all kinds of data, whether the data is structured (as in tables/rows or items), semi-structured (as in an XML file), or unstructured (as in a flat byte stream). This means that "WinFS" must also be able to handle files and serve as a regular file system. To this end, the "WinFS" system has a new file system driver (RsFxDrv.sys) to coordinate all file system services targeted for "WinFS". And the "WinFS" relational storage engine is expanded to store file streams and represent them as the so-called file-backed items. A file-backed item has two views. When accessed using the "WinFS" API, the file is like a "WinFS" item; when accessed using the Win32 API, the file is like a regular file containing byte streams. The item view amounts to a logical modeling of the data and the file view reflects more or less the physical representation of the data. Modeling a file as both an item and streams adds richer querying and sharing capabilities to the traditional file system and still maintains efficient streaming capabilities./ I think, it's worth reading the first page of a documentation at least. Kazi

And the Xerox GUI story: http://www2.iicm.edu/cguetl/education/projects/mischitz/Seminar.htm And PLEASE examine this picture: http://www2.iicm.edu/cguetl/education/projects/mischitz/images/star_screen.jpg The center of this picture is a window which lists file names. It's hard to read the file names, but do read those. You will be surprised, absolutely! Kazi

I really like how all the Mac junkies fell obligated to jump on anything Microsoft related. It's funny, most Windows users don't attack new Mac software, maybe it's because we don't feel threatened.

"Go find a woman, winfanboys. They're very interesting...better than your imagination, I promise you." I bet you like exchanging dress patterns with them and discussing the problems you have with your man. I guarantee Mac users get laid way more often than Windows users. Mac users are creative, innovative, and attractive professionals who actually get real work done using their computers, while Windows users are angry, misinformed dorks who play The Sims 2 and Counter-strike on Friday nights using their parents' computers. Mrs Palm and her five daughters doesn't count you black turtle-necked skivvy wearing ******. I bet you walk around looking like you've left your butt plug in. Because you have. Oh, and BTW what *REAL* work do you do? I'm happy my PC is a toy, because I like to play with toys, and my WIFE just *LOVES* the Sims. She thinks you're a conceited tool. Actually she doesnt care if you live or die, much like everyone you know. WinFS is NOT a filesystem. It's an SQL metadata indexing service running in the background, just like Spotlight. Except that Spotlight is nicely integrated into the kernel providing a file notification system and is available now, not two years from now. Who gives a toss? I'm off to play Battlefield 2 which runs from my d: drive. I know it's there because I'm running a heuristic modelling intelligent system capable of storing and recollecting literally unlimited amounts of metadata instantaneously. Better than WinFS, it's called a memory. I concede you have the moral high ground. Now jump off and kill yourself.

I really like how all the Mac junkies fell obligated to jump on anything Microsoft related. It's funny, most Windows users don't attack new Mac software, maybe it's because we don't feel threatened. It's because we don't care.

First of all, WinFS will almost certainly be the next major change in PC development. When used with the desktop search facility it will improve user performance and productivity. Secondly, I am amazed that there are so many Mac users commenting on Microsoft's work-in-hand. Although the Mac is an excellent system, there are just not enough choices available for the user to customize his/her system. This is a shame, and one that Apple should address as soon as possible. If Apple could sort out some interesting things for their users to do, then maybe they would have better things to do than waste their time offering nothing but insults to genuinely interested people in a Windows forum.

Why are mac zealots such idiots? I mean, who the hell cares people, get outside and stop basking in the glow of your monitors you pasty computer addicts!

I have XP Home and since last week get Runtime Error whenever I click on IE icon or a net link.("Program:C:/program files/microsoft office/office 10/winword.exe. This application has requested Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.") OE is fine. Microsoft, Dell and my IPS can't help. The other user on this computer has no problem. We are not on a network. Any ideas? Thanks!

"Nobody cares about Vista. It's going to flop because people don't want to waste money on a 3Ghz 512MB monster just to display shadowed windows on the screen" Running the beta with a pentium III 1.13 GHZ with 512 MB of RAM and it's actually a bit faster than XP.

"Nobody cares about Vista. It's going to flop because people don't want to waste money on a 3Ghz 512MB monster just to display shadowed windows on the screen" Nobody cares about OSX. It's going to flop because peoples don't want to waste 129$ each year just to obtain a service pack