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WinFS Beta 1 Released Early
Mouldy Punk writes "Infoworld is reporting that WinFS Beta 1 has been released. The new relational file system for Windows is posted on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This release is designed to offer developers a preview of WinFS capabilities. WinFS will be in beta when Windows Vista ships and will RTM afterwords. WinFS, when it ships, will be available for download for Windows Vista and possible support for Windows XP is being considered. The distribution mechanism for WinFS will be through an add-on download much like the .NET framework is today. Tom Rizzo also notes that there is a new blog dedicated to Win FS."
Well, of course, things went pretty smoothly. Users were able to easily convert their partitions to NTFS when upgrading (even if they didn't know what a partition was). New PCs came with NTFS by default, and Windows XP+NTFS succeeded largely (unless you're a Linux fanboy and don't want to admit it; in that case it never happened, how could it?). The (Windows) world was a better place now that FAT32 was largely a thing of the past. I'm not so sure if WinFS will be all that great, but we'll see.
Windows Vista will be no different than the 98 to XP conversion. NTFS users will be able to easily convert their partitions. Again, they will be able to do it even if they don't know what it is exactly. As long as they know it's recommended, they will keep clicking the Next button. You're worrying about something that will clearly never happen, given Microsoft's track record.
The add-on will likely be via Windows Update and extremely simple to apply. People who buy PCs after the add-on is released won't even have to do that. They will just have WinFS.
I also want to touch upon the phrase "idiot windows users" that you used. Saying something like that only serves to make you sound like an idiot. Windows users are largely novices, but you can't expect everyone to be an expert user able to keep up with the quirks of Linux et al. Calling Windows users idiots is like calling people who drive car's with automatic transmissions idiots. Sure, automatics are easier to learn to use, but that doesn't make those drivers idiots.
Now, I could go on to write a whole article bashing Geek Squad, but that would be pointless since we all know they suck and they overcharge.
-William Brendel
Right now you can add attributes to NTFS files, but there's no decent way to do it. Likewise, ANY DB-style FS is going to be limited to the ways that the vendor (MS) provides for you to access the data. Remember those ridiculous dialogs Winword used to prompt with? Asking all that crap about the author, and topic, etc. etc. until you asked Clippy how to turn the fscking thing off?
The "DB based FS" is only as good as the data that you put in, unless you solely want to make virtual folders of "all my MP3s that I warez'd last week from Rancid", but I'd say those sorts of things are going to be in the minority.. and again, depend on the metadata of said pirate MP3s.
Now there will be code jocks out there who would LOVE this sort of thing, since you could probably use it as a halfway decent free CVS replacement, but I'm thinking more of Joe and Jane Sixpack. How is it going to make their AOL experience better?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
About performance...
It's somewhat telling that you were pleased that it ran just as fast as XP on the same system. On my Linux box, when I upgrade the kernel or even KDE, I generally expect better performance than before. I get the impression that OSX users expect the same.
To be honest, I rather like the model of files having no direct location, rather, just a byte-heap in a database. For a long time, this is actually how I've organized my files on my disk, but the problem is, every now and again, your mind changes how you want to lay out all of the files, and it takes a few hours to refile everything in the correct folders.
With folders going the way of the highway, you can just heap whatever files you want, wherever you want, without all of that path confusion. Deal with namespace collisions either with longer, more descriptive file names, unique file identifiers, or a mixture of the two.
You might find it idiotic, but I find it as the best way to organize my files and find what I want, as fast as possible. Pair it with a program that can rip my files apart for all of the metadata that it can give up, index that along side the files, and no file is ever more than a few mouseclicks away. Best yet, instead of having to delete and move files around, which thrashes the disk and makes the filesystem a disaster, the filesystem can effeciently use space because it can know exactly how big the files are, and start sticking files right up next to each other. And if I were designing the UI for this thing, you'd be able to change over to a pane, change the SQL query, and poof, the folder displays what you want.
No more rediculous symlinks. No more folder paths, executable paths, etc. Better isolation of executable files and libraries and configurations, verses userspace files. Honestly, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages IMO.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I worked at MS on filesystems for a dozen years, and I totally agree with you. WinFS has been kicked around (and cancelled) since OS/2 days at Microsoft. Its a conflation of abstractions that needlessly complicate the data-structure of the file system. System recovery will probably be completely impossible in WinFS. And it can only slow down the system. And what does it buy the user? Faster file search. Except it will be beyond most users comprehension; a recipe for disaster rivalled only by the registry.
Someone will probably have at least partial support for it before it ever even gets out of beta.
And then it will stay only partially supported for 10+ years, just like the NTFS support.
That post just made my day :-) Hilarious.
90% of users don't understand that the Desktop is actually a file in a heirarchical structure. If you stopped hiding that fact from them, sat them down and said "look, here's how things are structured"... you could fix all of this in about 10 minutes. Perpetuating the "hide things from the stupid user" UI philosophy only makes people less willing to learn, and thus increases the need for stupid workarounds to fix it. Vicious cycle.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The root of the problem is that most people do not care where their files are located. They just want it to work.
That attitude (of the most people you are talking about) to me is just like, for instance: ``I don't want to learn about strings and notes, I just want to play the guitar!''
People will have to get it into their heads that computers are complicated things and you need some basic understanding of how they work before being able to use them. Have you ever seen a `My Documents' folder of someone who doesn't want to know about computers? No wonder they're always complaining that `it doesn't work.'
-- Cheers!