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WinFS to be available in WinXP
ScooterMcGoo writes "According to a Microsoft Watch blog, WinFS is being back ported for Windows XP.
From TFA: WinFS isn't dead, Tom Rizzo, Microsoft's director of product management for SQL Server, recently told Microsoft Watch. In fact, Microsoft is planning to provide an update on the technology at this year's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in September, he said.
Rizzo said that Microsoft is busily back-porting the WinFS file-system technology to Windows XP.
It's unclear if Microsoft also is porting WinFS to Windows Server 2003, but such a move would be likely, given that the Redmond software vendor is doing so with Avalon and Indigo."
I'd love to be able to use a filesystem that can be seen in a dual-boot environment; that's better than FAT32 or FAT16; but those are really the only choices now.
I don't know about you, but NTFS is fine for me. I mean, jesus, its a file system, not a damn search engine.
If everything will be back-ported to XP and Windows 2003, how does Microsoft plan to make any money off Longhorn, which has cost the company a lot in development time and money?
Do they plan on back-porting the first versions of Avalon, Indigo and WinFS, and then providing feature updates to Longhorn only, forcing customers to update? Or is Longhorn really just XP SP3?
It's important to Microsoft as a way of preventing Google Desktop Search and Copernic from gaining mindshare and installed base before they introduce their final version in Longhorn
Incidentally, Copernic 1.5 beta now supports Mozilla Thunderbirds email and contacts and Firefox history and bookmarks - and does it well. This is a double threat to Microsoft, as their vision sees WinFS as a factor which ties people to Outlook and IE6/7
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Could we please stop using the word "technology" when "component" or "chunk o' software" would do fine. It's Microsoft speak.
It would the first major file system upgrade since including FAT32 in Win95C.
They can also use WinXP people to do unpaid beta testing of thier file system, before they include support on a server platform such as Win2003.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Yes, there is a hard deadline for Longhorn, and that is a good thing.
That said, WinFS will not make it into the hard deadline for Longhorn. That said, it will be available freely as a download, and possible as part of Windows Update, for Longhorn and other operating systems including XP and, yes, Win2003, some time after the Longhorn deadline.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Depending on when this arrives, this could possibly be an attempt to take the wind out of the sails of Apple's Tiger release-- probably to arrive sometime before midyear-- which lists as one of its major selling points a new feature called "spotlight". Spotlight is a system service that has been described as offering similar functionality to WinFS, but does it without filesystem changes. I don't know exactly how accurate this description is, of course, since though Microsoft seems to talk an awful lot about WinFS and talk about its hypothetical technical capabilities, they never seem to give specifics on exactly how it works for the end user and what it means for the end user...
Of course, the above assumes Microsoft still actually cares about what Apple does, which isn't all that likely.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The main problem with NTFS isn't figuring it out, it's finding someone who wants to finish re-implementing a complex Microsoft file system for free. Moreover, if Linux (and other free operating systems) could fully support NTFS, including appropriate use of NT SIDs/ACLs, it would make a fine base file system. That might potentially give it the kind of universal acceptance FAT (a very simple file system) once had, which is something a good many Linux supporters would rather avoid.
Yes, I'm a UNIX-type person but keeping files in a logical directory structure along with copious use of find and grep commands seems to be good enough on most of the systems I work on. I even use WinGrep on Windows for that level of text searching...
The Registry is a database and definitely a weak point of Windows when it comes to resilience. NTFS seems to do a reasonable job of keeping the filesystem intact, why add a risk of introducing resilience problems into the filesystem by linking it to a database? Unless it's just a marketing ploy to sell you an MSSQL license at the same time.
Whatever anyone says about UNIX/Linux, the concept of keeping operating system tools simple and doing a good job of one specific task has allowed it to earn the stability and resilience reputation. Sure, you've got to spend time shell-scripting to unleash its full power but that's half the fun of it.
I'd love someone to give me a definitive answer as to why the concept of WinFS is so good - I genuinely don't understand all the hoohah about it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I expect they'll port it to Server2003 when and only when it's stability is proven.
From my understanding, WinFS is not a file system at all just a database API sitting on top of what is essentially NTFS http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=winfs+ntfs
Linux already has the technologies that comprise WinFS: generic metadata (e.g., ReiserFS 4), file alternation monitoring (e.g., FAM, dnotify), and higher level functionality being built on it (e.g., rlocate, Beagle, Dashboard, etc.).
Which of these "stick" on the Linux platform in the end will be decided by users. I think indexing and search will be popular, but more complex metadata schemes won't be.
It beats me why it is taking Microsoft so long to get their act together on this one.
Getting WinFS out there means they can work out more kinks before release of Longhorn and at the same time provide the "benefits" of WinFS to people earlier. Separating out key pieces of the OS is always good for the still changing OS. Similar to the Linux/UNIX FSes, after all. This will make the transition to Longhorn "smoother".
ext3 is ext2 with a journal, thats all.
If you want to see what filesystems are like when you add database features, look up some BeFS documentation from BeOS. There's a (sadly apparently now out of print) textbook on building filesystems using BeFS as a guide. While it's not really a database (it allows you define arbitrary indexes and allows searching on those indexes, but lacks most other features a database user would be familiar with) using it gives you a pretty good idea of how one that really was a database (with central data storage, relational algebra and set operations, etc.) would work.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This, along with Avalon being ported back to XP and IE7, is interesting - MS is responding to consumer demand for new features instead of doing the usual: forcing people to upgrade operating systems for them.
One thing though - I would hope that MS allows us ambitious types to activate a new XP installation so that we can try this out on a different machine. Otherwise most people like me will adopt a real "wait and see" attitude when it comes out.
Schnapple
Actually, no.
From how I understand it, WinFS will actually be a layer of abstraction above whatever underlying filesystem (FAT32/NTFS) the system is running on. It won't be a new filesystem at all. It holds metadata about each file and makes it easier and faster to find things. Much like the aforementioned Beagle project.
And ext3's journalling is quite different from what WinFS attempts to accomplish. Journalling basically makes it so, like you say, files aren't lost and you don't have to do a time-consuming fsck whenever the partition is not unmounted cleanly like with ext2.
According to Microsofts Tech Net (subsriber section only) MS has incorperated much Unix technology into it's new Longhorn OS.
That said, most current applications won't run on it. However it does state there will be a program to emulate older versions of Windows to allow those applications to run. Crossover Office anyone?
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
If that's the case, then it's just Extended Attributes ala OS/2. You could store all sorts of things in EAs, customized fields, information on what programs could open the file (overriding system defaults). I really miss that in the Windows products, and it's a big reason why I've always felt the Chicago GUI and its successors were nothing more than stunted cousins of OS/2's Workplace Shell.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ahahahaha. Let's review.
1) Run a file search on Windows. Go get a coffee and then see the results. Realize that you can only search on basic attributes of the file, like name/dates/raw content.
2) Run a file search on OS X. Click your heels twice and then see the results. Still, you're limited to some basic attributes.
Some months (or years, in the case of WinFS) from now...
3) Run a file search on WinFS. In theory you get hits pretty damn quickly, if they ever finish this technology. I'm not sure yet what extra file info you'll be able to search on, but I imagine it's more than the basics.
4) Run a file search on OS X Tiger. Not only is your search blindingly fast, but you can search on arbitrary file metadata (it will index things like EXIF data, ID3 tags etc). Also, you can save stock searches which will automatically update when new matches appear in the FS. I believe this technology was brought over with BeOS coders.
I am so used to the OS X file search speed and Mail.app search speed that on my work Windows laptop I was forced to buy X1.com's search tool to get around the incredibly annoying (when you're not desensitized to it) delay when searching in either Windows Explorer or Outlook. The market for this utility should frankly not even exist. It should be the responsibility of the OS to help you find things as quickly as possible, and it should have been done YESTERDAY. I mean Jesus, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to embed something like a SQLite engine in your email client code.
I'm glad that Microsoft is finally getting around to this (someday) but in the meantime I will be quite happy when Apple's Tiger shows up on my doorstep early this summer.
Can someone give me the short answer as to why we can't support filesystems like ext3 or reiser under windows?
I imagine the problem is that it can't plug in to the windows kernel well enough but I'm still curious. Seems like it would be a really neat idea if it were possible.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Slightly different - NTFS is more like Ext3 than WinFS is, being that both NTFS and Ext3 are journelled filesystems. WinFS sits ontop of a standard NTFS filesystem, and stores metadata for objects stored on the filesystem. For example, all of your photos currently sit on your filesystem in a flat format - you arrange them in a filesystem tree based on date taken, location, project etc etc and they each have some meta data of their own, such as camera type, resolution and such.
WinFS will allow you to add more meta data to those images, storing the Location, Date taken etc information right there with the image, rather than in the filesystem tree. This allows you to get rid of folders altogether, and have a situation more similiar to the labels system in Gmail - a photo can now be in several 'folders', eg location, resolution, project, allowing you to group dissimiliar items together without having to maintain seperate copies of an item, or symlinks etc.
This way you can submit a search saying 'ok, give me all items to do with last years holiday' which could return stuff like all the emails you had with the travel company, all your bookmarks you made when looking for the holiday, the photos you took while on holiday etc.
I don't understand how this is a good decision for Microsoft. Sure WinFS would be a nice feature on XP - but why would they backport the only thing that makes Longhorn worthwhile to XP? Don't they want Longhorn to stand out?
or else!
In other words, there isn't a single reason to upgrade to Longhorn.
.NET? Available for XP.
1.)
2.) Avalon? Available for XP.
3.) Indigo? Available for XP.
And now...
4.) WinFS? Available for XP.
Apparently, the only thing Longhorn will offer over Windows XP is a Direct3D interface that requires you to upgrade your computer in order to run it.
Perhaps Longhorn always should have been just a collection of technologies released for existing versions of Windows rather than a whole upgrade. Because I don't see many people upgrading with all of Longhorn's technologies being made available for Windows XP anyway.
http://blog.hackedbrain.com/archive/2004/12/13/277 .aspx
In fact, Microsoft is planning to provide an update on the technology at this year's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in September, he said.
Meanwhile, I'll actually be USING such technology on my Mac mini.
Seriously, it's taken Microsoft a decade to get this off the ground, and Apple decides to implement it between OS X updates and gets it out the door. What's up at Microsoft?
So is this the new development plan for Longhorn? Rolling it out in chunks instead of one coherent release?
It kind of makes sense to me. This way, they'll have some field testing of the key technologies and they'll be able to use the longer development cycle to work out more bugs.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
WinFS is not just some sort of search. They already have that with MSN Search.
WinFS an API to store objects at a file system level, indexing and streaming potential to file-based data. WinFS data can be structured with an XML schema to explain meaning and purpose. Data can also be semi-structured or unstructured. You can extend the FS with your own properties. WinFS come with a set of services such as synchronization, notification, a unified store and a common security model. Data, and files can have types, properties, fields, relationships, even constraints.
You're no longer using files, you're using full blown objects.
Wasn't this announced a long time ago? I swear there was an article several months to a year ago, stating that MS was abandoning the WinFS and 3D-Windowing features of Longhorn in order to get it out sooner. There was talk of integrating it into XP at some point instead of holding it off until Longhorn was done, since LH's release date kept being shifted back. There was some other features they were moving to XP too I think.
Insert Sig Here
Even if I could run Linux/BSD (well), I'd still probably spend most of my time in Windows, because of Office among other things. When using Linux/BSD, though, it would be nice to have full access to my files on the NTFS partition, especially with proper security mappings.
If more people start using winFS, it becomes that much harder to make a linux switch.
And we have already seen what they think about Wine.
Bottles.