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Longhorn to be Released in 2006, Sans WinFS
skillio writes "Everyone's favorite OS maven, Bill Gates, announced a release date for Longhorn on Friday. He confirms what many had suspected - Microsoft will attempt to complete this release in calendar year 2006. The most notable element of this announcement was Gates' admission that WinFS, Microsoft's next-generation file system, would not be complete in time for this release - surprising, since this was the most hyped component of the next iteration of Windows."
Actually, it might be a blessing. The pressure on IT to roll out new versions puts a real burden on us. We just got XP and 2003 server rolled out everywhere and I have a feeling we are *way* ahead of most other places.
since that file system will probably break compatibility with everything non-windows it's delay is good for everyone.
I wonder if they will decide to use it to lock out any third party application providers they dont like.
Am I the only one who thinks that "Longhorn" doesn't sound like an operating system but rather a name for a porn star? I can already see the advertisements: "Before the new Microsoft OS goes Gold, install Long Horn Silver!" In the context of men wearing tight MSN butterfly-man suits, it seems somehow appropriate...
Likely each component will be rolled out seperately... and then it'll all be bundled (without the new file system) for the official longhorn release.
Of course, they will package the new release with new bells and whistles to give people a reason to upgrade... but most function will be able to be obtained before the official "longhorn" release.
SP2, for example, contains several aspects of longhorn that were forced to the users sooner. Examples are the pop-up blocker and the protected memory to prevent buffer overruns.
Yep. Avalon, the new-fangled window manager was also cut for the final release. Windows version Copland?
He actually said 12006. Quite a few service packs away.
news of further delays is a kind of marketing in itself. logic of anticipation. lets just call it "Windows Stillborn" and forget about it.
First it was HL2, Longhorn is second, what next? DNF??
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Does that mean that 3 out of 10 nerds have never been exposed to the sun?
- These characters were randomly selected.
What was it - Cairo? Chicago? They ended up dumping them, and putting the "doable" stuff into their next "mainstream" product.
My guess is that WinFS was turning out to be one of those grand and glorious ideas that was falling short of "doable" - at least any time short of 2041.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Allchin: Don't call it 'Shorthorn'
Well, now that you mention it. It seems like an apt moniker.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Do you remember back on July 12, 1979 at Chicago's Comiskey Park when radio jock Steve Dahl rode the rising setiment of anti-disco and held a promotional where if you brought a disco record to the game to be destroyed at half-time you would get an admission for only $0.98?
It got me thinking about a little project I think would be at the very least, ammusing.
Something like, a cordinated anti-MS day in about a year when LUGS all around the world get together on a certain day and destroy MS software as well as MS effigees to protest our discontent. I'm picturing piles of old win3.11 floppies and cds of 9x, NT, office, games, books, and hardware billowing thick tenticles of black smoke, smearing the sky with... I don't want to pollute the environment with smoke, especially with MS's taint, so make that piles of stuff to be blown up with demolitions and shattered with small arms fire.
Then we could build a huge effigee of Bill Gates and Steve Balmer bowing before the penguin. Then have the penguin announce in a booming voice that tyanny in the land of Microsoft has to end and that his cleansing fire clean MS of dishonesty, at which time the penguin effigee would belch a fire ball that consumes the Bill Gates and Steve Balmer effigee.
Heck, this could even be an annual event or a holiday comemerating a specific moment in history when man freed himself from one of the worst tyrranies this world has yet faced and to celebrate the general spirit of individuals who wish to free and those around them as well.
This suggestion is to be taken with a grain of salt, but in a lot of ways, I'm serious. At the very least, if one LUG were to host something like this ala Burning Man style, I'm sure there would be a huge draw with resulting publicity and maybe some eyeopening in Redmond. However, it's time for the people to take to it Microsoft instead of them doing it the other way around.
I doubt it if they are going to be putting it out in 2 years. So this is basically going to be Windows XP with a new UI, Avalon the new DirectX, Indigo a program "to allow software and services to work across networks and different devices." and some new programming tool WinFX that supports both XP and Longhorns UI.
Nothing special.
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Yep another Free IPods Link
hmm Be eningeers did not need several years to come up with a similar filesystem..what is taking MS so long?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
So, in real life we'll see it in 2007? Or 2008? I guess we have an issue for a poll here :-)
.. and I just used my last "giant system requirement" joke on the Half Life 2 story.
WinFS is an interesting, bold, and novel take on a file system, but I'm not sure why it's taking so long for them to implement. They've been working on it for a very long time. It's complicated, but it doesn't seem ten-years-by-a-dedicated-team complicated. I can't help but think that once Microsoft comes out with a reference model, there will be an open source reimplementation in months.
Microsoft has higher demands on it, and it's harder to develop it the first time, and presumably their implementation is optimized to within in an inch of its life, but I still don't see why a project they're working on now won't be ready for 2006.
Could it be that they want to adapt their applications to use the new features before they release it? That I could see taking forever, since everything from Word down to the format Spider Solitaire saves its games in would be affected. But I assume that they've implemented a Win32 filesystem API on top of it, and presumably with tolerable performance, so why not release it and adapt the apps later?
Microsoft, and in particular Bill Gates, have stated numerous times that Longhorn is the most expensive and time intensive project MS has embarked on and would be as complicated as the Apollo space program. With that in mind, WinFS was really the cornerstone and pride of the Longhorn project as MS would like to say it. With that in mind, this is akin to cutting the goals of the Apollo space program drastically ... like not landing on the moon at all!
Granted a system like WinFS can be extremely complicated but it is not a "selling" point to me for Longhorn. I will compare it against other features it offers and decide to buy it or continue to use XP.
Pretty soon Gates will come out and say that the newly designed Kernel is not going to be complete, and they'll be selling XP Longhorn Edition. This is almost as bad as ID.
gShares.net
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artlu.net
Eek.... who would want to trust their data to a file system so complex that even Microsoft can't finish it after multiple years of development?
Microsoft has been doing this for too long for my taste now. Promising all remarkable and amazing things that keep us on our toes and when the product hits the shelves it's only ever so slightly different from its predecessor.
WinFS is simply the latest itteration of the concept of a database based file system that Microsoft has been touting as the next great thing to be included with Windows, since they started promoting the upcomming Windows 2000. (possibly earlier). The fact that Microsoft has not come up with a workable solution tells me that non-file related features are of greater importance to the marketing people than getting something out the door.
You never know...
A feature that solves no problem. An interesting idea placed in the wrong location. And I'm glad its shelved.
On paper, this sounds neat kind of in a thesis paper sort of way. But the practicality of it was way beyond what any desktop user would need. I had problems figuring out how to use it efficiently (after all you have to have meta data lined up). I couldn't even begin to figure out how to explain how WinFS would help grandma and grandpa.
I do see WinFS as an interesting tool for server applications but for a desktop it isn't feasible without a whole heck of a lot more tools. On a server I can see this being a powerful tool to help keep your web app file data sane because you can force metadata and relationships there. On a desktop it would have been a feature with cumbersome tools used once a month. This is the very definition of bloat. I am very glad it was shelved since the cost vs benifit of WinFS on the desktop was completely off.
By that time our company will be running Linux on desktops.
(but then, there's something oddly poetic about them naming their products after cheese...)
Just make a BFS driver. :P
My Systems
Microsoft's marketing department comes crawling back to reality shortly before release.
Ok...So, Longhorn in 2006. Let me get this strait: Not WinFS Avalon will be in Windows XP SP3 or SP4 Enhanced security is already in SP2 2006 is 3 years after the original date So what is left in Longhorn, do you pay $200-$300 for a new Microsoft cardboard box, boot screen and color theme?
It's going to be released with HL2 and Longhorn.
Another article on Longhorn from today's Washington Post:
New Windows Planned for 2006
featuring the amusing subhead "Microsoft Dumping Features to Meet Deadline"
This has all been part of the plan. Microsoft is slowly but surely dumping their crap interfaces and driving well-engineered, object-orientated .Net interfaces to all the low level stuff and providing well-managed, high-level interfaces that really leverage developer productivity at the OS API level rather than in the developer tools the way they had to do it on top of COM crap. If they manage to do it all before 2010, I'll be impressed.
Will it run on my Mac? :-)
Oh wait... I don't care
Call me a luddite if you will, but for the life of me, I cannot see the reason for a new filesystem. I'm all for metadata and so forth, but why rip up the tried and tested file and directory structure for this magical, cure all, search based filesystem. Search works well in Google because web pages are connect. My files aren't connected, so I don't think search on my filesystem will ever be half as good as search on the web.
As far as I can tell, MS (and GNOME 2.6 it would seem), seem to envision a filesystem where every file is simply dumped to one / or c:\ directory and this uber search finds all the files I'll ever need for me? Is this a joke? In this senario, ~50% of all the metadata will be the same for every file. I made it, with my privilages, with my settings etc... . After a while, even the simplest of searches will bring back a dozen matches. I can't see this working.
The reason given for this is novice users, who don't know where to put their files. they rely on their default program settings and just dump their files anywhere and then complain when they cannot find them. Fair enough, they are novices, but essentially hey are keeping a messy hard disc. WinFS would help these people only in the initial stages. As soon as too many files named 'Picture of Aunt Tilly' are present, the system will fall on its ass.
Metadata/Search based filesystems are based on the assumption that users do not know where their files are. I do, you do and for those who don't, no amount of programming wizardry is going to help them in the long run. Ultimatly they will have to learn how to organise their files, just like they have to learn to type,use the mouse and browse the web. And in reality, most people do eventually learn how to organise their files, if they use computers enough. And if they don't, our regular searches will be of use to them with only minor improvements. It's tough, but consider the search results that 'Find my Accounts for Acme Corp. for the third quarter of last year' brings up on the shared drive for even a medium sized accounting department after only a year.
Give me nested directories 30 levels deep!! And no spatial browsing please!
I did wast an entry in my journal on this stuff. maybe now someone will read it?
May the Maths Be with you!
...wich is not a surprise. Making those available in all the relevant windows platforms they'll tempt developers to *use* them (the same binary using avalon features may work without modifications in longhorn *and* XP SP$SOMETHING - compare that to avalon only being available for longhorn. Everyone would use just XP features and no longhorn features because fo the extra work needed). It looks to me like they though that everyone would jumpo to Longhorn because of their coolness, but they realized that they would lost what they call "the api wars". Now that they realized that Longhorn can't be 100% true they need to retain people in their new APIs - putting them available for XP is a good way to do that. I'd call that "conserving upwards compatibility" a different version of one of the reasons they're everywhere: "conserving backwards compatibility"
But are they getting Fezzik and Vizzini as well?
Or is that for 2007?
Maureen O'Gara has a good piece on this at LinuxWorld combatively titled "Microsoft Gored by Fat Cow"
Among other things she writes:
The sexy WinFS storage system, which is supposed to unify the base OS file system and the file stores in many applications, is a reprise of the spoiled old Cairo project that Microsoft broke its horns on trying to develop years ago. In Cairo's case the file system was dubbed OFS, short for Object File System.
To extricate itself from its habitual scheduling pickle, Microsoft has reportedly been "componentizing" its technology so that there are no dependencies and so that things can stand on their own, so to speak, buying it the breathing space it needs - as it does now - to get on with rebuilding its operating system from the ground up.
Microsoft of course has never confirmed that this what it's doing, but Gartner has long thought that was what it was up to and now it appears that Gartner was right because Microsoft is now saying that it will deliver WinFS "after the Longhorn release" and that Longhorn's two other special, so-called WinFX technologies, the new Avalon presentation engine and the new Indigo web services communications subsystem, will be made available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
You don't seriously think that Microsoft had any intention of shipping WinFS with Longhorn did you? That's one of their standard reasons why you shouldn't switch to an alternative operating system - because [x] fancy feature is coming out Real Soon Now. Once they've held onto you long enough to get over the hype surrounding their competitors, and once the release date looms nearer, they drop the pretense that they are going to ship with the fancy new feature. WinFS is vapourware.
"In other cases, vaporware is announced by companies in order to damage the development or marketability of more real products by competitors"
Remember when Windows 95 was supposed to be uncrashable because of 32-bit memory protection? Did Windows 95 actually deliver on that promise? Did the half-dozen or so operating systems that Microsoft released after Windows 95 deliver on that promise? How long do you realistically think it will take them to deliver WinFS?
So, we have a good idea of what longhorn's feature set is. And we have a nice long timetable for when it might be released. I'm betting that open source can create its own versions of these features (the ones worth having, at least) well before then ... wouldn't it be fun to completely trump MS on their own OS recreation.
Do people still use suckie windoze and .Not full of bugs virus must kep an IT shop busy 365 rebooting and rebuilding suckie windoze .net server boxes.
M$ products are just yuckie.
WTF, is it Offtopic day today or what?? Or are new posts from now on offtopic from the beginning?? Yeah, mod me OT!
Longhorn, the next major server OS release, is now targeted for 2007. Its major new features will include the WinFX platform, including Avalon for mostly client-side graphics, Microsoft's next generation file system WinFS, and the Web services messaging system Indigo.
Didn't read the other articles, so maybe this article has a mistake
I'm glad MS is stripping WinFS, because this makes ReiserFSv4 look much better in comparison. Who needs a bloated database FS when you can do it modularly with plugins?
Maybe the mighty "editors" decided to mangle with /. today?
It won't be so hard in the future. I know how bad things are because worked a fortune 500 "upgrade" to XP a few weeks ago. They figure the average tech can get two PCs done in 8 hours, how pathetic. With people feeling so well burnt about hyped stagnation ware and a failed three year "job one" effort to fix things, upgrading will be considerably simplified for your next release. It will consist of a chron job:
Packages will reside on one of several local servers, any old 486 will do, with multi year uptimes. The hired help upgrade slave gangs will be a thing of the past.
Your job will simply be to customize the installations to meet your organization's needs and to manage your company's data. You will do this by keeping abreast of software development, employee feedback and programming in your copious spare time. It will be much more fun than calling vendors and screwing around with binary crap that does not work well. Your company will be very happy.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
hmm WinFS is do-able. I think what is more likely is that Microsoft's implementation had such brutal bloat that its ram and CPU requirements were more than computers any time soon can handle.
Microsoft will be anxious to put another version of Windows out. They need to keep upscaling Window's system requirements to drive new PC sales. If the latest version of Windows runs slowly on a computer, people think the said computer is outdated and needs to be replaced. Buying a new computer entails sending money to Microsoft for a new Windows licence. It's that simple.
In addition, Microsoft is anxious to put out the next generation version of Internet Explorer to try and tie the world wide web to Windows, which I'm sure they'll do quite effectively. They'll have noticed Mozilla's market share slowly creeping up.
OS/X is already superior, runs 64 bit code, and is completely intuitive and is a free and open source Unix that is better than Linux.
:-)
just buy a mac
Could this delay mean that the year of Linux' dominance over microsoft is finally approaching?
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
Round of applause please. M$ have just made an engineering decision that works for users at the expense of their own image and revenue stream.
If WinFS was in late beta at the time for the Longhorn release there would be a massive urge in MS to release it anyway, bugs and all so as to get dosh out of the upgrades. That would be disasterous!
The FS needs to be just about indistinguishable from perfect and bug free; bleeding edge doesn't cut it. M$ seems to have grown up enough to realize that.
Considering your history of postings and assorted comments such as "I love you GNAA", one may think you're just a spotty teenager venting his excess of hormones here.
Well, let's see though: you're Slashdot user ID #262881, which means you probably opened your account around 1998/1999.
It is now 2004, about 5/6 years later. Assuming you were, say, 15 when you opened your account, you're now 20 or 21. My personal guess is, probably more.
Which means you're not a spotty teenager with some social adjustment issues, but a certified fully blow retarded grown up. Do you feel good about yourself?
and they'll be selling XP Longhorn Edition.
This was, in fact, the plan all along. Longhorn was to be XP Second Edition, version 5.5 or the like, and Blackcomb was the new all-singing all-dancing Windows 6.0.
... I was actually interested to see what WinFS would be like. From what I understand, it is supposed to be different from the traditional heirarchical filesystem. If the filesystem worked like a database, then folders would be the equivalent of tables and SQL statement results, if it actually used folders.
I know that Apple's upcoming release of Spotlight with OS X "Tiger" is probably what WinFS would appear to be like from the GUI perspective, but its underlying filesystem is still heirarchical since they're not changing it. I presume it would work similar to the way iTunes displays libraries and playlists like a database, yet stores the actual files in a heirarchical arrangement only visible to a user who manually browses the filesystem. Data displayed from WinFS would be a direct representation, rather than indirect one of data stored heirarchically.
WinFS not only provides all the file system functionality requirements but it also adds indexing and streaming potentialities to file-based data. To access the stored files, WinFS provides a rich set of APIs including the existing Win32 API. With these facilities Win32 developers may continue using Win32 API in Longhorn and also add some query and searching potentialities to applications. WinFS extends APIs potentialities to work with non-file data including personal contacts, email messages and even other qualifying file data. The WinFS data can be structured with an XML schema to explain meaning and purpose. Data can also be semi-structured or unstructured. The entire storage platform must provide the infrastructure to organize, search and share information. When it comes to these aspects, WinFS goes beyond a traditional file system and a relational database system to support these potentialities for all types of data.
I read that as, "We're having trouble integrating with with Digital Rights Management, as we had envisioned it. Also, we're still deciding on a data-mining algorithm for all the entries on each computer, generated from the collected personal contacts."
After all, Apple never charges full price for incremental bugfix releases of its OS!
Oh, wait...
I think MS is going about this a bit more complicated than necessary. Mac OS 10.4 is said to have similar features. It's not as complicated as you think: simply attach XML metadata to every file (similar to how .NET and a host of other systems do now) and organize based on that.
The problem with MS's implementation is that they want to tie SQL to it. Noble (it'd vastly improve performance) but unnecessary.
It still remains to be seen how well Apple pulls this off (my guess: ok, but not perfect). While the implementation is easy, getting it to work as expected will be hard.
I'd personally be satisfied with just a "spokewheel" system: have every person and event as the axle of a spokewheel and have the files branching off it (business contacts, vacation photos, etc). Not too complicated: just define a person schema in XML, make each person the top key and work off that. I think MS originally wanted to take that approach (based on the MS research projects) but overdeveloped its complexity.
... does anyone else here think even with Microsoft taking some features out to speed up the release of Longhorn that they're going to end up delaying it a few more times anyway?
Who really gives a shit? Not me. I stopped using Windows years ago.
Ludite
For those who think database file systems like "ground breaking", I would argue it is primarily hype material. As people have pointed out again and again, database file systems have been around for a while and there isn't a huge demand for it.
Isn't all information potential file data? Is Microsoft really doing something different than has been done before?
The article also states "WinFS uses a direct acyclic graph of items (DAG)."
The math goes back to the 1970's, as referenced by MathWorld Old math can be used in new ways. Is his a new way when it's used in the FS that Microsoft is attempting?
The articles also says: " the WinFS data model provides the following concepts to describe data structures and organizations: * Types and subtypes. * Properties and fields. * Relationships. * Constraints. * Extensibility. "
Does the new Reiser4 file system support any of these concepts? -- Is WinFS really as new and exciting as the marketing and media says it is?
Thanks.
I dropped of those years ago, as microsoft wasnt putting out product often enough to make it cost effective. ( they go along with the MOLP agreements.. )
.. Then you have no software... Its a perpetual lease..
The other hidden problem that few people think about is that if you drop off the plan, ever, you loose the license to use what you have
Going retail prevents this problem.. Yes it costs more, and you don't get their 'enterprise support', but at least you are in control.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
LOL OMG WILL U GUYZ BE MY FRIENDS NOW I TOLD AN EASY JOKE ABOUT MICRO$$$$OOOOOFFFT! LOLZ!! NERDZ!
Think much?
Oh, isn't that great, I can't even make fun of the dude because my quote has too many caps in it.
Suck a lemon?
Some people just don't get it, do they. At least the US government has their eyes open.
The dream is to create a "star trek" like computer. Why should I remember the filepath to a file (or in my case wich computer). That is not how I pick a book from the shelf is it. I don't need to remember the exactly title of the linux o'reilly guide. I can find it very fast by the general size and color even feel and the fact it is most likely near my desk.
The ultimate idea is for you to instantly be able to find what you want without having to remember weird filenames and paths. Even better to be able to find things when you got no idea what the filename is. If you ever had to search for something on a windows shares network you know how hard it is.
I got one simple example that is very hard to organize. Manga/anime. How do you name the file? Japanese name? Japanese but in roman characters? Translated name? Official licensed translated name? I can always use locate (I store mine on a linux san) but that requires me to know the name. I can't search for a series "about a boy visited by a goddess" I need to search for "ah! my goddess" "oh! my goddess" "ah! megami-sama" etc etc. The only common character is the !
The ideal search system would allow me to find all the files belonging or related to the series with a simple description. It would show me related series, give me the mp3's with the box covers. Tell me I got the dvd's.
Not sure if this is what they are trying with winfs but there sure could be a market for the perfect search system. Your 30 level directory works very good for a simple 1 way search system. Kinda like a file cabinet. You can sort the personal records by name. But put it in a database and you can search by anything you want. Even combinations.
But it is going to very hard to do. All the databases I seen work on the principle: crap in crap out. The trick is not in creating a database file system. The trick is in writing code that can insert content into the database and get meaningfull info on it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This guy who was modded +5 doesn't understand a simple idea. He's your average naysayer, the kind of guy who would turn funding down to a couple of guys with a ridiculous name like "google." Instant search results. Who would ever want that?
Here's what WinFS does: Grandma wants a file. She knows the name. The name and the existence of the object is inside of her brain. She types the name, or something about the file, or some fragment of its contents into Microsoft's newfangled search tool, and the results pop up at the moment that the plastic of her mouse button makes a clicking noise. Instantly she's got 29 results. There is no delay on searches when searching a WinFS volume. One thousand results can be displayed the very moment you click the search button. This has a profound effect on the gestalten of interfacing man with the machine, and it's exponentially more useful than it seems on paper. It's like searching on google.
What if you had to wait while "google scans the internet" for results?
On countless occasions, I know just what I want. It's in my brain, but I end up spending 50 seconds looking through heirarchies of arbitrarily imposed organizational systems, clicking through folders, and trying to "get at it." If I could just find it as easily as I can think of it, it would take but 2 seconds to get at it. On current Windows systems, I don't bother, because I know that searches are too slow to be useful.
WinFS is all about making the filesystem more like a human brain, and thus easier for the mind to natively access something which is arranged in a similar way to it.
I wonder if the meta-tags would help
My mom is global director of office online... The new office is coming out that year too they are trying to market them together. (of course) More money! Software bundles! More Crashes!
Im not wrong....the rest of the world is.
Oh this is rich. We just got through a story about outsourcing, and everyone's talk about how new technology will supposedly save us. Now here's a story about some of that new technology, and the talk swings back to how bloated and unnecessary it is.
You people are your own worst enemy.
I agree and you said it well with:
After a while, even the simplest of searches will bring back a dozen matches. I can't see this working.
The reason given for this is novice users, who don't know where to put their files. they rely on their default program settings and just dump their files anywhere and then complain when they cannot find them.
As far as keeping things in order, well, wasn't that the point of the whole "My Documents", "my pics", "my pr0n" folders and such?
First Microsoft want us to use these folders, so much so that they embedded these folders into the OS and most you can't delete (Outlook express, for instance).
Now Microsoft wants drives to become a dumping ground for files and we have to search all the time?
Seems kinda silly, IMO.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Unfortuantely most companies will say, "your job [apt-get] is now handled automatically?! You're gone! Wee, we saved 0.025% of our IT budget!" Six months later when the connection fails because some idiot messed up DNS, they have no one left who can figure out how to fix it, and no one who can do it manually...
Yeah, right.
You know, NTFS has been a thorn in my side for some time now, and I have *NOT* been looking forward to WinFS at all.
The fact of the matter is that NTFS 5 is the one file system that it appears no one can reliably write to without creating problems, except windows.
Most file utils want you to boot to DOS, Knoppix boots you to Linux, and if you're lucky, you can read, but not write.
It drives me up a freaking wall. I've forced Knoppix to mount an NTFS volume r/w, and made a change to boot.ini once, and I got off lucky.
Perhaps with NTFS 5 still in use in Longhorn, it will buy enough time for someone to finally crack the problems with r/w mounting of NTFS 5?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
OK, so it's a way of sharing data across applications etc, etc, but can someone give me an actual real-life situation where I would benefit from it? Not a sarcastic comment, I'm genuinely interested.
So WinFS, the searchable file system, won't be there? Well Slashdot recently had a story about Linux based efforts to provide this. Apple is talking about this for OS X 10.4 due out in 2005. And there's been speculation that Google might do something like this.
Is it possible that the other players (Linux/Apple/Google) who tend to release upgrades on a regular, incremental basis could get way ahead of MS? An interesting possiblity.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Anyone here truly surprised? Doesn't seem likely to me. With products such as windows, bill gates doesn't need to do much more than sit and pick at his ass all day. ^_^ Aside from that, though, I'm not too sure that even if Longhorn comes out in 2006, it'll be entirely bug-free, or that it will be even close to the supposed stability of Mac OS X. Well there's one thing Windows might be better than Mac at, and that's subtracting. ;-)
Free flat screens
Ahem Apollo mets its goals except for one.. how about MS?
-Men on moon before decade ended-JF Kennedy
-The only delay was fter the Apollo fire on launch pad..and that was only one year delay
Don't Tread on OpenSource
This vaporware evaporation is a good example of how Microsoft inhibits innovation. Not due to some malicious plot by Bill Gates. Rather the inability of his giant, complicated organization to nimbly publish new technologies, because of the ramifications of any change to their monolithic system. If their architecture were simpler or more elegant, they could point their billions of dollars and thousands of programmers at any new tech, armed with the inside expertise of the other Windows systems with which it must interoperate, and roll out something new in a few months. WinFS has been announced so many times, and would do so much good for Microsoft, that it's obvious Microsoft's execs want to put it out. The captain of the Titanic wanted to turn away from the iceberg, too, but his ponderous state-of-the-art craft couldn't avoid the sudden obstacle. Let's just hope there are enough lifeboats to save the hundreds of millions of Windows users, and the rest of us don't get sucked down in the whirlpool.
"Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence."
- Unix fortune teller
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make install -not war
this might be off topic, and just incase i'm posting anon to protect my karma BUT
- sl ashdot
/. stuff when u need it!!!
http://www.electricstate.com/articles/defuglify
go there, put the javascript on your firefox bookmark toolbar, click it, VIOLA PRETTY SLASHDOT GREEN AGAIN ON ALL
Long Dong Silver? Are you serious? I have just done a little research and there seems to be a huge amount of prior art on images.google.com (and "huge" is surely an understatement, while "art" is probably an exaggeration).
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I got one simple example that is very hard to organize. Manga/anime. How do you name the file? Japanese name? Japanese but in roman characters? Translated name? Official licensed translated name? I can always use locate (I store mine on a linux san) but that requires me to know the name. I can't search for a series "about a boy visited by a goddess" I need to search for "ah! my goddess" "oh! my goddess" "ah! megami-sama" etc etc. The only common character is the !
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http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=119715&op=
...dupe of Earl, Earl, Earl.
Longhorn is *still* two years off... since 1999 or so, right?
Maybe it'll ship bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.
When he said they were _way_ ahead he was implying they were alone in that. This leads to the idea that these products aren't successful as everyone thinks.
... at Apple, perhaps?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...shipping when it has to ship, not when it's done.
The more things change...
He/she does have a valid point.
Why can't you just accept new technology and first take a look at it? It's not that the good old tree like filesystems are the best ones. They do indeed have problems. Have you ever read about data modelling? Have you studied some papers about that? Obviously not, otherwise you would know what the current state of data representation is. Hierarchical systems are indeed some of the worst if it comes to expressive semantics. There are new concepts outthere, trying to solve those problems, and, yes, they come along with a new paradigm.
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If you are too lazy to learn and accept new paradigms, you don't deserve to be a geek.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=119715&op=
...That Longhorn will really just be a new Interface theme for Windows XP, which is really just sort-of a new interface theme for Windows 2000.... of course longhorn will introduce a slew of new and exciting bugs.
I am a little excited about these next-generation bugs-- go Microsoft!
What they oughtta-do is pay Hans Reiser some 'hush money' to use reiser4 core code, and implement their own repacking and indexing daemons. They could also write filesystem plugins for NTFS-style ACLs, compression, and encryption. I can't see why that wouldn't work.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
What are you talking about? 10.1 was free to 10.0 users. Neither 10.2 nor 10.3 would be considered "bug fixes", and Apple still supports 10.2 with security updates. Apple may charge for incremental upgrades (one can debate whether they are incremental or significant), but not for bug fixes.
Seems like every new version of Windows from 2000 onwards was supposed to have a new file structure that allowed for database like access.
STOP STOP STOP CANCELING IT!
Ugh!
Oh well, old new, MS's new file system canceled AGAIN! Wait another 3-4 years to see if it is in the next release.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Check out how hard I can jam my fingers into my ears and how tightly I can sew my eyes shut!
This smells a lot like the failed WindowsME. As i recall it was supposed to be the next grand thing in computing. A step as big as the one from Win3.1 to 95. It ended up as a mere add-on for Windows98 with more crashes-prone features than you can point a "shrug and reboot" attitude at!
:-)
If they keep droping ground breaking feature like that, in 2006 they'll be releasing a "Windows XP longhorn edition"!
-- If you actually say LOL instead of laughing, maybe it's time to go outside! --
someone else writes it. M$ has never innovated much of anything. They buy/steal it and then market it. Think Word,Excel,Visio etc. What "gotta have it" features will be included in their next OS release?
What enormous leap was made from 2k to XP? They have to put out something so their customers can perceive some form of value. The customers that don't buy into
their upgrade agreement will stick w/ NT. The developers that can actually make this new FS will be swimming in an ocean of M$ cash. Because I doubt that, given their usual MO, they'll pull it off.
Microsoft convinced IBM to trash development on their own file-system codenamed 'Hilda' by showing them charts and graphs, etc., of how great HPFS was.
So, IBM, in it's usual pattern, bought the presentation and stopped all work on Hilda. THen waited... and waited... and waited.
Turns out, MSFT hadn't written a line of HPFS code when they gave the presentations on HPFS. And when OS/2 2.0 finally arrived years late, it had a buggy new filesystem written by MSFT. One of its stellar features was the disappearing filesystem!
-David
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
I think what we're seeing is MS beginning to adapt to the release schedules of their OSS competitors.
.NET 2.0 Longhorn will have a two years beforehand, Indigo a year in advance, the free Yukon embeddable data engine two years beforehand and now a substantial slice of Avalon, not to mention at least 1 more media framework and substantially increased device support - XP is a completely different beast. Hopefully we'll get a new version of IE that isn't the equivelant of shoving a rod of Uranium 235 down your shorts too (and for those who don't think its important when you're using Firefox anyway... have you looked at how many apps mshtml.dll is embedded in?).
If you think of new paid MS desktop releases as whole number releases of Gnome/KDE (substantial changes, new environment), MS is in pickle trying to compete with the "minor" even numbered releases the Linux desktop teams are pushing out. Every six months, Gnome users get a little more - that's hard to fight when you only release new OS changes every 4 years.
Whenever people asked me why they should upgrade from Win2k to WinXP Pro, I always said "You'll get a new annoying cartoon interface and a couple nice internal things, but mainly, you go with XP because of the periodic updates that become available to it". I think if you look at XP that was released and compare that to the XP users have now (with journal tablet support, two new versions of the windows media framework, three revisions of built in wireless support, and now native bluetooth support all the other stuff tossed into SP2), I think that everyone has to agree (whether they like XP or not is a different story) that its a substantially changed product. This is ignoring the products that were pushed to all previous versions of windows (.NET Framework, IE and OE, DirectX 9, etc). Its also not just cosmetic features - The windows userland driver model is being deployed mid-XP release as opposed to in a new Windows version.
From the look of it, the changes keep coming - by the time Longhorn rolls out, XP users will also have the same major version of
It looks like WinFS follows the same strategy - don't buy Longhorn because its completely different from XP - buy it because its slightly different than XP at release, but also because you'll be eligible for a four years update cycle that will end with Longhorn being substantially different than XP's resting place.
"...Getting 'Longhorn' to customers in 2006 will provide important advances in performance, security and reliability..."
Just like I cut-n-pasted this quote, Microsoft cut and paste it too except they change the name of the OS. Fill in Win 98,Me, 2000, XP... etc and you virtually have the same press statement every time.
Mouse gesture? Is that like this?
One thing a lot of people haven't noticed is that SQLite will be in 10.4 . Read it on Apple's Tiger preview page (right at the bottom, last paragraph).
While they're not specifiying what they're doing with it, or if it'll even be tied to the filesystem, is seems to be in there for some reason, and apple will put it to use.
Avalon is not the new DirectX, it is the new GDI. It will replace the Windows interface rendering system, accelerating it and providing new features with 3D, and providing XAML to all applications. Here is a reference.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
This is an indication that Microsoft is having trouble bringing in
complex projects. It hints at deep organizational problems, and maybe
basic flaws in the factory assembly line approach to developing software.
And why have so many smart people left MSFT? Nathan Myrhvold, Rob Glaser,
Charles Simonyi, Rick Belluzo, and others . . . Maybe it's just not a
good environment for nurturing talent.
And Dave Cutler, Bill's star project leader, the guy who brought in NT
ten years back -- Cutler looks like he's burned out.
Yes, MSFT is definitely on the downward trajectory.
I used it for many years and never had any problems with loss of data or file system corruption.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The problem is not assurance or maintenance plans, the problem is the vendor. IBM DB/2, Oracle, Sybase, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, and hundreds of other vendors provide support and maintenance contracts.
The difference is that they actually fix bugs and security problems instead of pushing "new features".
As to the announced date -- it's from Microsoft. Since when has Microsoft delivered a project on schedule? NT 3.5 was late, 4.0 was late, Win2K/NT5 was late, and so was WinXP.
The only thing I can schedule by the 2006 date is knowing I have at least until then before I need to worry about budget planning. I have work to do that needs to be built with reliable products available now, not more vapourware.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Floppies burn remarkably well... Just be careful of the carpet for the dripping. CDs on the other hand don't burn easily. I've only tried twice and only ended up dripping melted, bubbling plastic onto my hand.
Not much else computer-wise burns. Cable insulation will if you try hard enough, but is rather miserable. Anything metal, needless to say, forget it, and PCBs seem to be made to be flame-retardant (here's a rather shocking example of why).
Needless to say, friends are learning to keep me away from lighters (especially two at once; Setting light to the handle of one lighter with another is very fun... Until it burns through the plastic and reaches the fluid! Big Mistake!)
You know you've been IMing too long when you almost say 'lol' out loud to a non-geeky friend...
On my computer, I designed my own desktop image in Photoshop. In large words and coloured areas, I have "regions" of stuff that is instantly available to me, and arranged intuitively and visually. So, my upper left area is my "VIDEO" area, and just below that is AUDIO. Below that is WEBSITE, where there are folders to everything having to do with my website and web activities (such as blogs, posts, audio filez, etc.). On the right side of the screen is SYSTEM where I have shortcuts to everything in my system, so I don't have to go drilling down into My Computer, and then SHORTCUTS where I organise the desktop shortcuts to various apps. There's one more area in the lower center, called VARIOUS, and it has folders and shortcuts to sundry files, arranged according to necessity and fiat.
In short: I have almost instant access to anything I do on my computer, and filing it can't be simpler: Desktop / whatever. I have this system on both of my Macintosh computers and my Windows box, and it works great. It's What A GUI Is Built For. When I resurrect the ancient weezing compaq, I'll put a similar organisation system in the GUI for SUSE.
If you file stuff intelligently in the first place and use the GUI creatively, it obviates the need for funky ass WinFS nonsense.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
But they didn't have to integrate it with the legacy Windows code base. Apple did OS X more or less from scratch. Windows never had a foundation for this type of thing.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
or else you will ruin the joke. I can see how something like this could be beneficial but not in a religious way.
And it's true that most costumers will save on average $287 when the switch to Geico.
You people are all fucking clueless mouthbreathing MS bashers. .NET, Aero, or Avalon in any of the comments.
No mentions of Indigo, the new
Any informative comments here are pearls before swine.
Over at the register they're claiming Avalon has been axed also. Avalon goes
I honestly thought they weren't going to release Longhorn until it was done; until it had what they said it was going to have. I was starting to think it might be good enough to swat down the Linux competition long enough for MSFT to catch its breath.
I suspected this before, but now I think I'm convinced: The term "Longhorn" just refers to "whatever sneaks out the door when the deadline hits, we're not really sure". So what is this thing going to be, anyway? A bunch of new proprietary networking protocols and 3d-accelerated OS services? At least we can hope its security dashboard will be more refined than XP2's. Unix-izing the division between Administrator and User would also be a very simple, colossal step in the right direction (as we all keep saying). Here's hoping it doesn't suck.
Yeah, I beleived them when they said Windows XP wouldn't need to be rebooted when installing software. They had WinXP so hyped up, I almost thought it was a new Operating System.
the better Mac OS X looks, new hardware purchase required or not.
Now no WinFS!
First it was "no WinFS over the network"!
What next? Roll back NTFS to FAT32?
We TOLD YOU they couldn't do it! Did you believe us? Oh, no, the Windows trolls know best! Microsoft can do no wrong!
Now the Windows trolls will say, "Microsoft didn't cancel WinFS! They just postponed it!"
Whoop-de-doo, morons!
Meanwhile, Reiser 4 on Linux lays the groundwork for enhanced metadata reporting by allowing the efficient storage of millions of small files in the file system.
Where will Linux be in 2006 after two more years of development?
Faster, more secure, more reliable, and heavily enhanced, that's where.
Have a nice day, Windows trolls!
Mod this flamebait, mod this troll! Is that all you got, huh? Are you nuts? Come at me!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
... which says "Avalon and Indigo will be part of Longhorn"
The Register piece was written prior to the announcement.
Here's a slighly more detailed list of changed plans:
:-S
- No WinFS
- WinFX, the new API to replace Win32 will also be released for Windows 2000 and XP.
- Indigo, the new communications infrastructure for Longhorn will be released for Windows 2000 and XP.
- Avalon, the presentational subsystem in Longhorn will be released for Windows 2000 and XP.
So, in essence, it seems like the difference will be as great as that between Windows 2000 and XP -- a bit of polish and a new interface, maybe semi-3D this time. And that's when Microsoft is working hard? I have no idea why I should check out Longhorn as Windows XP will be far more mature at the time (and maturity plays a huge role in Microsoft's products), and Longhorn seemingly won't even bring any major new features.
I have no idea why they're backporting a lot of key features to XP and 2000 either. I would understand it better if they developed under an open source model, but this company should want profit from selling licenses! Huh?
By the way, WinFS was never a file system, it's supposed to be an extension to NTFS. So one of the links that say "more than a file system" is horribly incorrect.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Far be from me to interrupt another AMD lover swooning on slashdot...
I thought the buffer overrun protection was AMD's idea, with the NX page flag.
Buffer overrun protection is more than NX. Much of XP was recompiled with VS 2003 with its buffer security checks enabled.
That I know. But since this is slashdot, let me say a few things that I'm just guessing about:
-the concept of "buffer overrrun protection" existed before AMD decided to implement NX.
-non-executable page capability existed on non-x86 hardware well before AMD's NX.
Sorry to interrupt. You may now reinsert your tounge in AMD's ass.
I mentioned tools as part of the problem. Lets say your digital camera has 500 pictures. Even if you have the desire to in detail setup the metadata for these 500 pictures the amount of time necessary to do it is staggering. You could easily spend more time maintaining the pictures instead of enjoying them.
You also neglect the thing that metadata means different things to different systems. One person might care if the pictures are near the ocean or in the mountains so they can search against that. The tools to express these features aren't impssible but are beyond what most "Nana" level users care about.
WinFS will work great for document archiving systems like SharePoint. It will do nothing for Nana and her thousands of images.
It is called longhorn because you're really going to get screwed this time.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Anyway, yeah what you say is right. The problem I think is not for MS to come up with a database filesystem. The problem is getting the system to input files with meaningfull descriptions.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The only Microsoft 3d desktop demonstration I can recall seeing was some obscure handycam video of some guy moving 2d windows around inside a WindowsXP mod called SphereXP. Not to bash the guy's efforts but by comparison it looked hacked together and confusing (especially for "Aunt Tillie"). I'm looking at research.microsoft.com right now and the video of Microsoft guys talking about a 3d desktop... Then they show their implementation of one. It. Is. A. Mess. It is beyond description. You really have to see it for yourself. Nobody would want this. If you thought people's Windows desktops now were cluttered, organizational trainwrecks, you should see this thing. It would make Aunt Tillie's head spin--if it didn't give her motion sickness first.
I'm inclined to agree with you that Microsoft may already have lost its position of leadership. Listening to the guys in the research.microsoft.com video, it sounds like MSFT is mostly populated by PHB's now.
Gnome Storage. Mr. Nickell is doing a brilliant job with it, too.
Not that this is a new idea or anything. Oracle has had an RDBMS-based filesystem for years. Plus, really all Microsoft is doing is taking a metadata system, adding relationships between files (with no real definition of how those relationships are defined and maintained, that I can find), a background search system, and other nifty features that have been explored in other filesystems (such as BeFS).
Nothing really that revolutionary, except that it's going into MS-Windows. Someday. Maybe before this decade is out, even.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You should use captive-ntfs on Knoppix, or better yet:
I hope it helps.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Of course it isn't. No open source projects have been started yet to try to beat Microsoft to the punch. And without source code to steal, how can Microsoft be expected to come up with a product?
You mean, beyond 640kB?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
That was exactly my point
FS stands for "Future Storage." And WinFS isn't being pushed to the next version of Windows after Longhorn. It will be available in beta form for Longhorn, and will probably be a standard download off of Windows Update.
Didn't we already see this news article last week? I guess there's never a wrong time to bash Microsoft.
a horrible place
Par for the course for Monopoly$oft...
_ de couples_longhorn/
Mac's are already years ahead.
http://www.theregister.com/2004/08/27/microsoft
1. Annouce WinFS
...
2. Allow OpenSource People to Do All the Work
3. Steal OpenSource Code
4. Profit
Don't be taken in by this idiot--he has accounts under the names bonch and Overly Critical Guy. He has a history of astroturfing for Microsoft, bashing anything Open Source, using lies and half-truths to get modded up, karma whoring, and the usual trolling (under his bonch account, he got a troll posted to the front page of Slashdot).
All you have to do to check the veracity of this is to look at the posting history of his two old personnae (linked above) and his current one to figure it out.
Please do not mod this jerk up--every time you do the Slashdot S/N ratio goes down while bonch/Overly Critical Guy/rd_syringe just laughs at you.
This has been a public service announcement
Your == belongs to you
Yes, people who post as AC all the time are lazy and annoying. I wish they wouldn't do it. However, I'm glad the AC option exists despite the trolling and other abuse that happens under it. As in real life, it causes a lot of low-level annoyance plus the occasional life-saver.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The OS (as Linux and many others do) can check why the pagefault happened and raise a segfault if it's being loaded at CS:PC and shouldn't be. Note that this is quite do-able even without NX or the like, the reason MS-Windows doesn't do more checking along those lines is because the internal structure is too chaotic (it really has degraded quite a bit since it was VMS 5.0 (AKA MICA) - or at least, spelling-error compatible with it).
NX-style bits and better have existed since at least DECsystem-10 days; their absence from the x86 architecture is mute testimony to its inherent bankruptcy. And I should add in the true spelling/grammar Nazi spirit that discussion of lesser architectural flaws is moot.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Delete MS-Windows from consideration entirely. Yes, I am serious.
Start pestering your vertical market suppliers for a Linux edition now; that gives them nearly two years to get an act, and if they can port it to Linux (or to be more specific, off MS-Windows), then they can port it everywhere so if you elect to go FreeBSD or OS X instead, it doesn't matter much.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In apples case there is no need to integrate it with any legacy Maybe AFS is more modular then NTFS
The default Mac OS X filesystem is HFS+
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
"the most hyped component of the next iteration of Windows." I first read this as "the next irritation of Windows." Actually, I suspect "iteration" is a typo.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Yeah, that's what they're saying NOW!
In another X months, it will be:
"Avalon dumped from Longhorn!"
Just like WinFS was guaranteed to be in Longhorn just a few months ago.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but many of the issues we have are because we are running in flat memory models. The Intel architecture from the 386 onward is quite capable of supporting a model where applications have segments that can may be quite protected from each other.
Couldn't you theoretically give each thread its own selector, rather than process? And, if you want to get down to it, couldn't you have thousands of selectors, and maybe even go down to an even more granualar level than threads? Like, I always thought that many of the hardware security features of the x86 are actually not used.
This is my sig.
What I don't understand is why the 2006 release date?
Surely if it doesn't look like it will be finished by then, then move the release date to 2007, or whenever they think it will be done.
I know I'd rather they took their time, made sure it was a quality product, than hack pieces of to make some arbitary release date.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
After cancelling WinFS, I hope they at least get time to redo the Search interface again. It was beginning to look old.
(Remember how many times that thing was changed?)
Can someone explain to me why in the name of Jesus I would want such a graphically intensive "face" on a server?!?
How about I reserve some of those resources for, oh, I don't know, service related processes?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Yeah, so now that they're delaying this new "FS", until 20xx, if consumers want that sort of functionality, they can just switch to MacOS.
I plan to. In Feb 2005 I'm buying me a nice shiny new Dual Processor G5 with a sexy Cinema display.
I could go for one of their new all-in-one jobbies, but I do like the G5 as it was when it was released...
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)