Microsoft Uncertain About WinFS for XP

Ant writes "As a follow-up to WinFS to be available in WinXP story from a few days ago, BetaNews reports that Microsoft (MS) stopped short of confirming reports that it plans to back-port its next-generation WinFS file system architecture to Windows XP. MS tells BetaNews it is only evaluating the move while also acknowledging WinFS is still years off. "We are currently evaluating making the WinFS storage subsystem available on this platform and will make the decision based on what is best for customers." a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews."

Comments

WinFS

[kortex]

The term 'vaporware' comes to mind...

I think this is more of a REALLY DUH!

[yuriismaster]

If I was in microsoft, I would think that backporting a filesystem wrapper over NTFS is probably a bad idea.

It's hard enough to design this WinFS, much less change all the OS components to be compatible with this filesystem. I also think the learning curve/'WTF is this' factor is too great to drop onto Windows XP users. Let it ride on Longhorn, but make sure you give a really full explanation on how to use this meta-data FS well.

I certainly don't find a need for a DB-based FS, but I know that it helps. Will it help enough people enough to make it worth implementing?

Best for customers?

[peacefinder]

That article contains a wonderful example of the difference between Microsoft and the OSS movement. Microsoft is developing a new filesystem that (one would hope) is vastly more advanced than the one they currently use. Yet they're hedging about making it available for older systems, because they have yet to decide what is "best for customers".

Now, if they were really interested in what's best for customers, you'd think they'd let the customer decide on a case-by-case basis. They could just release the filesystem for older systems via an extensive patch and see what the customers decide to do. Instead, Microsoft is going to determine what is best for all their customers.

The OSS folks would just release (and have released) new filesystems and let the bits fall where they may.

Central planning versus individual choices. Remind you of any 20th-century struggles?

Re:Best for customers?

[Gerad]

To be perfectly honest, do you really think that the average consumer has the ability or the desire to decide what is "best" for themselves? People, as a whole, look at computers as an appliance that either works or doesn't; there's so much that we take for granted that they don't even know exists.

No offense meant, but I think that your post is "a wonderful example of the difference between Microsoft and the OSS movement". While I agree fully with the OSS movement in theory, there is a lot more to a computing experience than the sum of the components. There is the overall presentation to the user, THAT is what Microsoft gets right, and THAT is what the OSS movement needs before it can ever truly be mainstream.

Re:MMhhhmmm sure

[globalar]

They've been advertising hype for 10 years. Real development time is questionable.

Meanwhile, Google has a free app which is great at local searching and incredibly fast. And it doesn't take a new filesystem to use it.

You're point is strong though.

Re:clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this standard MS mentality to force people to upgrade? They just recently discontinued support for NT4. From 1994. XP is still freely patched since 2001. 2K too. Most new developments (IE, .net, ActiveX, etc) are often still available for older versions of their OS.

How is Linux support for Linux from 2001? Yeah, yeah, theoretically you could download all the source and compile from scratch, yadda yadda...but even Red Hat recently killed stuff that was less than a year old.

How is APPLE support for their products from 2001? Hell, most new programs require 2 or more paid upgrades for X to even function.

This is standard mentality for pretty much anyone but MS. They support and back-port things for free quite regularly. Say what you will about their other business practices or security, but they are far and away the best in the industry (of major OSes at least) at updating things for free.

Yeah, right, as if...

[Malor]

Based on what is best for customers, my butt.

They will make the decision based on what's best for Microsoft. I don't think the customer has mattered to Microsoft much since about Windows 95. In fact, 10 years later, I'd argue that customer welfare is near the bottom of their priority list.

Offhand, I can't think of a single move they've made in the last 10 years that really and truly had customers in mind. Being in a monopoly position, their mindset has shifted away from 'what services can we offer in exchange for money' to 'how many feathers can we pluck from the goose with the minimum amount of squawking'.

They've always been nasty, hardball competitors, but at one time they shipped some pretty kickass software, too. Word for Windows was particularly good. Even that horrible flop, Bob, was at least well-intended. But now that they are in a position of real power... if you'll notice, they never, ever ship anything that's really disruptive of or threatening to their main monopoly.

Most likely, their internal studies will be focused around how much money they can make and how much customer lock-in they can manage. Will giving it away free give them enough power to be worth losing the cash from selling it? Should they sell it at a low price, to generate some cash but get it into fairly widespread circulation? Should they sell it at a high price to corporations, to gather lots of cash but gain little leverage over filesystem standards? Should they bundle it only into Longhorn to help 'encourage' upgrades? You can rest assured, thoughts like "Is this technology something that every Microsoft customer should be able to use?" will never even occur to them.

Whatever their actual thought process ends up being, actual customer welfare will not enter into it.