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...

Re:WinFS

[DurendalMac]

The translation of MS's statement: We can't get the damn thing working, so fuck it.

Why the push in the first place?

[EggyToast]

All of the information coming out seemed to show that WinFS was simply a metadata layer atop NTFS. It wouldn't add any actual data handling to the file system, it wouldn't speed up read/write, and it wouldn't make NTFS more accessible to other operating systems.

All it would do is make locating files easier, at least that's pretty much how they were shopping it around. You could do that without adding another layer to the HDD by simply having an element of the OS scan in the background efficiently.

Conversely, though, I wonder if the reason they're starting to back off of WinFS now is because including it would mean that all of those obscure file locations where companies like to hide setup files would be that much easier and faster for people to locate. I've lost count of the number of times I've needed to hunt through hidden folders to find some stupid file to edit or delete. And the search taking 30+ minutes didn't help.

Maybe instead of working on WinFS, they should focus on coming up with an alternative to the registry.

What they say?

[ackthpt]

"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."

That never stopped them before!

Re:Call Me Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else think this is Bill's white whale?

Steve?

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?

Re:I think this is more of a REALLY DUH!

[Leo McGarry]

You don't understand Spotlight.

Index Server did just what it says: It indexed file contents. Every operating system can do that. The Mac, the platform with which I'm most familiar, has been doing that for at least five years now, and probably longer; I can't remember exactly.

It's not useful, and here's why: The days when most files were plain text are long gone. There are still plain text files out there, sure, but they're the vast minority. Most computer users probably don't create them at all, in fact.

Instead, people have e-mail messages (which are stored in plain-text files, but which are not plain text; they are in fact filled with what looks like gibberish to the casual reader), audio files, photographs, PDF documents, and application files. Most of your application files these days are being written in XML format which, like e-mail, is stored as plain text on the disk, but is filled with lots of stuff that's not related to the contents.

So merely indexing the contents of text files is not useful.

That's why Spotlight does things completely differently.

It's kind of hard to imagine that there's somebody out there who doesn't already know exactly how Spotlight works -- Apple's only been talking about it incessantly since last summer -- but I guess I have to concede the possibility. So let me explain it.

There's a program that runs in the background all the time. It's called "mds," for "metadata server." It's a system service; people don't interact with it directly. The purpose of mds is to store all the metadata on the computer and to respond to queries.

The mds program gets its metadata from another background task, mdimport, or "metadata import." The mdimport program reads files, extracts all the information from them it can, then passes that information off to the mds program.

The mdimport program is extensible through modules called metadata importers. Each metadata importer corresponds to a file type. When the mdimport program examines a file of a given type, it fires the relevant metadata importer module(s) to extract information from that file. Each metadata importer implements exactly one C function: GetMetadataForFile. This function receives a path to the file to be examined, a file type and a pointer to a key-value-pair data structure called a "dictionary."

GetMetadataForFile populates the dictionary with metadata stored as key-value pairs. When it returns, the mdimport program passes that information off to the mds program for storage.

The important idea here is that GetMetadataForFile can do anything to the file to extract metadata from it. A metadata importer might pull ID3 tags out of an M4A music file. Another one might extract EXIF metadata from a digital photograph. Another might parse a word-processing file in XML format, discard everything irrelevant, and return just the names of the fonts used in that file. Another might pull the date stamps out of a chat transcript and store them as start-time, end-time and duration metadata. Another might pull key frames from a QuickTime movie and store them as thumbnail data. Another might find e-mail messages with attachments and store the type and size of the attachment as metadata. The sky's the limit.

Spotlight is way more than just simple content indexing. It does content indexing, of course, using a new version of Search Kit, but that's just a part of it. (It's also not really that new. It's just a slightly optimized version of what's already in Mac OS X.)

As usual, the casual dismissal of something fairly revolutionary can be blamed on a high degree of ignorance on the part of the person doing the dismissing.

Re:But why bother backporting?

[Anonymous Coward]

WinFS runs on top of NTFS. Get your information straight.

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:Not Vaporware

[kortex]

Not actually, no. But I'll walk you through it.
"Vaporware" is sarcasm. Microsoft has quite a marked history of big claims and late deliveries.
No surprises here, really :)

Re:clearly

[dsginter]

Its in consumer's best interests to force them to upgrade lest they be left behind and forgotten.

Normally this is standard MS mentality but I disagree in this case. Here's why:

Hard drive space is friggin' cheap. Look closely there. The 80GB unit is $55 while the 40GB unit is $48. Wow... For that kind of bang/buck, manufacturers might want to start bundling Linux with Windows in a dual-boot configuration. And coming soon, virtualization - you'll be able to run Linux and Windows simultaneously on the same damn PC.

What better method of migrating people from Windows?

WinFS, however, throws a monkey wrench in that. While linux NTFS is coming along nicely, Microsoft is fearing the loss of the proprietary-ness that has locked them in for so long.

Linux on the desktop is close (though ever so frustrating at this point). WinFS is Microsoft's last ditch at thwarting it for another couple years.

Re:Call Me Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Bill,

I heard recently that you might be after a 'white whale'. As it so happens I have a few harpoons from my last job at HP, I would be happy to sell them to you on the cheap.

Drop me a line if your interested.

Carly Fiorina

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.

Is Longhorn the new Copland?

[earthbound kid]

With all the delays for Longhorn, I wonder if Microsoft fans don't feel like Apple fans during the late 90's, eternally waiting for Copland. During the wait for Copland, Microsoft was basically ahead of Apple, since it already had a true preemptively multitasking OS and Apple fans had to put up with cooperative multitasking and frequent crashes. Now, while Apple is poised to ship OS 10.4 Tiger with Spotlight (aka all the functionality of WinFS) and CoreImage (aka all the functionality of Avalon) before July, Microsoft faces delay after delay. Of course, Microsoft OSes are frequently late (who can forget the many delays of Windows 95?), but though the release came fast and furious for 98, ME, 2000, and XP, Microsoft has been stagnating since then. Even a simple service pack has turned into a huge production for MS to produce and ship.

I think all of these signs point to MS's code base being too big and unwieldy. I don't think anyone doubts that IE is too bloated to fix. Just compare the time between the release of 5 and the release 6 to the time between the release of 6 and now. If Microsoft could implement full CSS selector support and non-broken PNG display, I'm sure they would have by now, but IE is just too tangled to fix quickly anymore.

So, if MS is wandering in a Copland-esque desert, what's to be done? As unbelievable as a suggestion as it may seem, maybe they should take the OS X route and just buy a competitor and cut their loses. Starting over from (not quite) scratch will give Windows a shot in the arm. WINE has already proven that backwards compatibility with Windows applications doesn't have to be dependent on using their existing OS code. They should just buy out Be (a good choice since they already have a metadata filesystem) or someone else with a Unix-like underpinning, and rewrite Windows the right way. It will take another 3 or 4 years, but at this rate, they're going to need that much time anyway. Spinning their wheels on Longhorn won't get MS anywhere. If MS wants to innovate (and that's a reasonable question), it's time to take a chance, kill Copland, and try something new.

Re:I see a security hole...

[NanoGator]

"At least when you obfuscate your folders, you make it harder for both you and intruders to find your info."

So, by making your computer less useful, it becomes more secure. I'd say "that explains a lot", but I fear mod retaliation.

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.

Re:WinFS vs Tiger Spotlight?

[Jugalator]

Spotlight is like a desktop search engine, allowing searching for metadata in addition to "regular" actual file data, right?

In that case, that's about half of what WinFS is supposed to be. It will make greater use of metadata, probably through the already existing NTFS streams in e.g. Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Yes, you can already store and search true file system-level metadata in those operating systems, an almost as little known fact as that you can mount devices in Windows XP to "folders", similar to how it works in Linux. I can for example mount my DVD-ROM at E: to C:\Devices\DVD. Anyway, that combined with the WinFS service running on top of NTFS helping out with indexing to allow instant database-style searches, should offer something similar to Spotlight functionality, if I understand Spotlight right. :-)

However, there's more to it than fast database searches in WinFS. It also aims to change how we look on stored files altogether, taking away system-related concepts like "hard drives" and physical "folders" when navigating your stored data. Instead, your data will be organized into more abstract libraries of data. You'd for example store your games in your Game library, whose contents wouldn't be tied to one folder on one hard drive. You'd go to your Game library, and double-click on Doom III, instead of going to C:\Games\Doom III. Actually, C: wouldn't even be a concept seen by the user anymore.

It's even supposed to seamlessly work through network shares, however last thing I heard is that won't be in the initial release of WinFS.

So it's a new data model, and a new way to look at how you store data altogether.

All this is how it may look to the user. However, to Windows, it's a storage engine running as a service on top of NTFS.

Very early stages of WinFS could be found in the already released/leaked Longhorn alpha versions. Although you couldn't really say it was anything near functioning, you could see the concepts, and that was likely the intention at this early alpha stage.

Here are some quotes from Paul Thurrot's site:

"Microsoft is trying to make it easier for you to find your data on our ever-increasing hard drives. By adding relational database capabilities to the file system, it will take less time to find documents, email, and other data. After all, as one Microsoft executive asked me recently, "Why can we find anything we want on the Internet in seconds, but it takes so long to find our own data on our own PCs?" In addition to the underlying WinFS technology, Microsoft is also adding a new file system concept called Libraries, which will organize like collections of data in Longhorn, regardless of where they are physically stored in the system. For example, a Photos & Movies Library would collect links to every digital photo and digital video on your system.

"I should not care about location when I save," says Microsoft VP Chris Jones. "Why can't I just click on my computer and it shows me my documents? It is a computer. It should know what a document is, what I have edited and annotated, what I have searched for before, and what other places I have looked for documents. It is not just documents on my computer I am looking for. It is documents I care about."

------------

"NTFS will be the only supported file system in Longhorn, from a setup and deployment standpoint, though the OS will, of course, continue to support legacy file systems like FAT and FAT32 for dual-boot and upgrade purposes. The oft-misunderstood Windows Future Storage (WinFS), which will include technology from the "Yukon" release of SQL Server, is not a file system, Mark Myers told me. Instead, WinFS is a service that runs on top of--and requires--NTFS. "WinFS sits on top of NTFS," he said. "It sits on top of the file system. NTFS will be a requirement."

Interestingly, when WinFS is enabled, file letters are hidden from the end user, though t