WinFS Update

Article
06/23/2006

It's been nearly a year since I wrote my entry about WinFS Beta1, but rest assured, we have been working furiously since then. Today I have an update about how we are delivering some of the WinFS technologies. It represents a change to our original delivery strategy, but it's a change that we think that you'll like based on the feedback that we've received.

As most people who read this blog know, WinFS has always been about many things – a new model to enrich how users manage information, rich storage technology, and sometimes also a packaging of technology. The real change I am addressing today is in the packaging strategy.

There are many great technical innovations the WinFS project has created – innovations that go beyond just the WinFS vision but are part of a broader Data Platform Vision the company is pursuing. The most visible example of this today is the work we are now doing in the next version of ADO.NET for Orcas. The Entities features we are now building in ADO.NET started as things we were building for the WinFS API. We got far enough along and were pushed on the general applicability of the work that we made the choice to not have it be just about WinFS but make it more general purpose (as an aside – this stuff is really coming together – super cool).

Other technical work in the WinFS project is at a similar point – specifically the integration of unstructured data into the relational database, and automation innovations that make the database "just work" with no DBAs – "richer store" work. It's these storage innovations that have matured to the point where we are ready to start working on including them in our broader database product. We are choosing now to take the unstructured data support and auto-admin work and deliver it in the next release of MS SQL Server, codenamed Katmai. This really is a big deal – productizing these innovations into the mainline data products makes a big contribution toward the Data Platform Vision we have been talking about. Doing this also gives us the right data platform for further innovations.

These changes do mean that we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release. With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into SQL and ADO.NET, we do not need to deliver a separate WinFS offering.

Be encouraged that we are able to get the underlying feature work into Orcas and Katmai. It's great technology and we are super-excited to be productizing this way. And most importantly, it's what people have been asking for – as we work with customers, we're constantly hearing that they want many of the technologies to be more broadly available in the data platform products. That feedback was taken seriously.

Of course, there are other aspects of the WinFS vision that we are continuing to incubate – areas not quite as mature as the work we are now targeting for Katmai and ADO.NET. Since WinFS is no longer being delivered as a standalone software component, people will wonder what that means with respect to the Windows platform. Just as Vista pushed forward on many aspects of the search and organize themes of the Longhorn WinFS effort, Windows will continue to adopt work as it's ready. We will continue working the innovations, and as things mature they will find their way into the right product experiences – Windows and otherwise. Having so much ready for SQL Server and ADO.NET is a big impact on the platform, and more will come.

That's all for now. I know people won't be shy with questions and comments.
- Quentin

Author: Quentin Clark

Comments

Anonymous
June 23, 2006
So WinFS would be similar to Cairo?
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
Еще одна грустная новость от Microsoft. WinFS лавочку прикрыли :(Quentin Clark сообщил, что&nbsp;части...
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
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Anonymous
June 23, 2006
WinFS is dead.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
I hope people see this for what it is: WinFS has morphed, rather than what the naysayers will argue: WinFS is dead.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
When WinFS was delayed the reason given was they were waiting for the next version of SQLServer. Now WinFS is scrapped because the next version of SQLServer is coming

Guys, please tell us whether we would get a relational file system in future versions of windows. We understand that the next version of SQLServer would support unstructured data. We understand that entities got adopted in ADO.NET. But could we expect a relational file system?
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
If it's not a stand alone store system then it's dead. Having these features in SQL are really nice, but we thought it was about a file system.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
WinFS Update@WinFS Team Blog はぁ？どこがアップデー...
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
Alex: Um, barring some clarification (especially touching on the relational file store issue), people could be forgiven for thinking that WinFS has morphed, certainly, but into something not unlike a corpse.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
Sounds like they're killing WinFS to me. It's really amazing. MS has been trying to pull this together for what now, 10+ years? This was the only thing I was looking forward to in Vista, and then post-Vista, and now never...
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
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Anonymous
June 23, 2006
PingBack from http://craigrandall.net/archives/2006/06/winfs-morphs/
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
What happens to "Project Orange"?
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
WinFS is no more. At least not as a separate product to be released as an add-on to Windows Vista some...
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
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Anonymous
June 23, 2006
So the relational file store for Windows is dead while the product technologies live on for use in other products? Everything sounds so rosy in the article with all the progress on the technologies, but yet there will be no SQL file store for Windows. So that's it then ... WinFS is dead.

For the guy who said it morphed... um, is there a product that will sit on top of Windows and do what WinFS promised? No. It's dead. Thanks for playing.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
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Anonymous
June 23, 2006
This is one of the most ridiculously managed project in microsoft. Teams that have taken dependency on WinFS are dead now. I remember MBF taking dependency on this dam thing for OR Mappling and is no where now.

You guys don't talk. First ship something and open your mouth! Never come to PDC and give preview of some prototype that never ships.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
"With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into SQL and ADO.NET, we do not need to deliver a separate WinFS offering."

Non sequitur.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
PingBack from http://rjdohnert.wordpress.com/2006/06/24/winfs-suffers-the-same-fate-as-cairo/
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
News from Quentin Clark.

I was quite keen on the idea of a relational file store.

Oh well.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006

It sounds so positive. But it's like giving a speech in front of the coffin. You just keep remembering the guy inside, and the more you do, the more you remember he's dead.

Rock dead.
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
What does this mean for the vision of me having a central store of say contacts across all applications in Windows? By making WinFS a teknology in SQL server, it seems the whole "central store" idea is no longer possible, as it will be up to each application to utilize the functionality. That's bad news in my book
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
What does this mean for the vision of me having a central store of say contacts across all applications in Windows? By making WinFS a teknology in SQL server, it seems the whole "central store" idea is no longer possible, as it will be up to each application to utilize the functionality. That's bad news in my book
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
PingBack from http://kamallanka.wordpress.com/2006/06/24/winfs-is-no-more/
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
Quentin Clark (Richard, un parent à toi ?&nbsp; ) nous livre quelques informations sur WinFS (Windows...
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
So I guess this pushes an object file system in Windows another 6-8 years into the future...
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
I think you are not helping with posts like this. Be frank and don't try to spin news like this. Here are the reason people were excited about WinFs:

- Relations between files
- Common schemas for things like contacts that can be shared between apps
- Access via "old" file system APIs for legacy apps
- Incredible synchronization story

All of these were features that end users would have witnessed directly. And, implicitly, all of these are gone for good now. Writing a post like "Oh, the exciting stuff will come in Katmai, this is really what you have asked for, this is good news" is just PR spin, be open and frank about this.

Part of that would be to come forware and let us know WHAT the reason was this was killed. Did perf not come along? Did important other apps like Outlook not sign on? What was the real reason?

I strongly believe that having a blog and engaging in an honest conversation can only work if you then don't try to play the usual PR "every decision is great" messages.

So, can you say anything about the four topics listed above? Are you still working on those for future Windows versions? Or have you given up completly on those? Let us know and talk to us!
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
For something completely different, since things get refactored and put into Katmai, what's the release date for it? Before Vienna? Is there a remote chance that Vienna will implement a relational file system?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://www.osreview.com/2006/06/24/the-sad-tale-of-winfs-and-the-vista-user-experience/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
May 22nd you're hyping it and June 24th it's no longer? You guys are the keystone cops of software development.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
With the announcement of Bill Gates&#8217; planned departure, there was speculation as to the fate of some his pet projects including the perpetually elusive WinFS (&#8221;Windows Future Storage&#8221;) file system. Well, the other shoe
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Quentin Clark of the WinFS Team posts of the projects demise. Well he actually said was they broke up...
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
At first I read this and thought, oh no another 10 year wait for the cairo file system. and then I sat back and thought about it.

1:) the entity system has been embedded into ado.net and will probably will be the default framework (3.5??) in Fiji.

2.) we have not heard all of the feature set in fiji, so it is possible that we will hear more after vista is released, but is highly likly that there will be a data platform concentration with fiji, in conjunction with the released data platform. I at least hope so.

3.) we know peer to peer sync and castle was removed so that and the data platform would be a very good combination.

and working with the ntfs team so unified schema platform in windows can be realized.

thanks
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://www.5tags.com/no-winfs-in-vista/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Welcome to This Week with Windows! That means everything from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Here are a
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
The WinFS team have announced that their product will effectively be absorbed into .NET 3.0 and into...
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
"productized" LOL
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
So WinFS' features are being absorbed into SQL Server. In effect, we won't be calling it WinFS; we'll be calling it SQL Server.

You just moved the target audience of "WinFS" from the Windows end users (the majority of the computer users) to a small fraction of the server market.

Revert the decision or WinFS is dead. To be brutally honest, you're in deep shxt.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Seems that Microsoft finally gave up on one of their most promising ideas...
&nbsp;
Good thing for...
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://ps-aux.org/blog/?p=25
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Two interesting perspectives on what's happening with changes to the WinFS release:
http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2006/06/23/644706.aspx...
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Unlike I believe the vast majority of your posters, I followed WinFS deeply and understood what you where doing with it. It was a brilliant way to address the issue of a whole new fs. But it also did occur to me how it wasn’t really much on top of other emerging technologies and looked like it should just 'be there' as opposed to a separate product. So this move doesn’t entirely surprise me. Everyone I discussed WinFS with didn't get it. Anyhow, great work on getting to here, some of us understand what you’ve done.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Alex James said, "I hope people see this for what it is: WinFS has morphed, rather than what the naysayers will argue: WinFS is dead."

But whither Windows Future Store [or Windows File System]? That is gone. SQL will get some new features, but how does that help me organize my files?

It sounds like some implementation advances will get to be applied to another product, but WinFS, as a product, is dead.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
For all people that don't understand the MS marketing blabla here is the translation of this blog article:

We have no idea how long it will take to complete the features we have promised in the last couple of years and get around all the problems so we have decided to rename the few things that work and put them into an other product. This way we will have some more years until even our most clueless customer will find out that we just can't deliver what we promised.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Instead of wrapping the death of WinFS in euphemisms, MS should admit it and instead share with the world the technical challenges (if any) that made the project infeasible. It'll be helpful for other people who are planning to do stuff similar to WinFS.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://goldenbraid.wordpress.com/2006/06/24/winfs-is-dead-long-live-vaporware/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Woah, there Quentin. Take a writing course! Your text is full of corporate blabla and nonsensical words. What you are doing to the english langauge is a scandal
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
After multiple years of wasting our share holders 's money, I hope to see someone to take responsibility for this WinFS failure.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Cairo went south and now WinFS, one of the three core features of Longhorn, advertised and partied about, declared abandoned.
Vaporware, the second time.
Hopefully, with Gates' retirement, the visionaries grab some sense.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Boooo Hissssss

WinFS was an innovative forward thinking project for the client. Basically you guys are telling me now that was all untrue and that it'll serve me better as part of SQL server and ADO.Net.
Now why do I feel like I was being sold a pipedream?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Cairo was a version of NT that was supposed to
ship with an earlier incarnation of WinFS,
OFS. (See http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,69882,00.html )
That was, oh, twelve years ago.
I used to think that computers just weren't powerful
enough for a database to replace the OS's main
filesystem yet, but even though computers are now
about 250 times faster, it's evidently still not
the right time. Maybe it was just a bad idea?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
So when will we see some work to improve NTFS from a performance and reliability standpoint?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
So, where does this leave us for filesystems for Vista? Is WinFS the filesystem dead? If so, then I consider WinFS itself dead.. SQL Server stuff is nice, I guess, but it's nowhere near as useful or relevant (how many normal users use SQL server?)
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
EXCERPT:
And most importantly, it's what people have been asking for

COMMENT:
Customers are NOT asking for this technology to be removed from Vista (even if they do want it available in SQL Server). Besides, if WinFS were available in the operating system, would it not also be available to both SQL Server and its clients? Something doesn't smell good.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://jarkolicious.com/probes/2006/06/25/winfs-is-dead/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
When did programs become "product experiences"?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Ext3 filesystem for life! :)
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Microsoft is awesome at everything, except "Actually releasing products we can use". They talked about ObjectSpaces back when I was a baby. They didn’t deliver.They talked about DLINQ, and came out with Entity Framework, which is still a good
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
I love Microsoft, its such a wonderful company
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Hello!

WinFS was baby of Bill Gates. Is death of WinFS related with his departure? I want to hear BG's opinion regarding this news ...

Thanks, Roman
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://www.edspace.com/blog/index.php/2006/06/25/windows-only-makes-it-worse/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
And... it seems that comments that aren't pingbacks aren't getting posted?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://seekbrain.com/2006/06/25/winfs-dead/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
It shows how Microsoft is still 15-20 years behind what Unix and IBM Mainframes can provide today.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://iridium.csd.auth.gr/~stpetrak/wordpress/?p=528
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://samia.allwatch.org/2006/06/25/51/
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Quentin, from your posting and many of the comments above, it would perhaps be beneficial to clarify the following:

1. Your posting implies that WinFS benefits will be released as they become mature. The corollary is that WinFS is being dropped because of technical immaturity - could you be more specific as to the technical issues you have faced.

2. What are both the timescales and features which are scheduled for release over time, and in what products?

3. After so much investment, and with the feeling that we're so close to the prize - what was the rational behind shifting delivery strategy in this way? How much of the decision was based on technology, and how much was based on business/strategy issues?

4. In terms of Windows Vista, what WinFS benefits are expected to be released and what are the expected timescales?

I may be being naïve, but clarification of the above questions would help consumers of Microsoft products understand the implications of your announcement.

Sundeep Sidhu.//
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Reiser baby!
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
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Anonymous
June 24, 2006
Well :(

I was interested always in IT future. For me it was amazing to play with Windows Longhorn since I've got 4008 build. The most interesting thing in it was the feature called Windows Future Storage. The whole idea to create the new type of data system (against file system), that would offer data relations, full-text search, smart data organization made me happy with it. It was very nice to play with 4074, and 5048 told me that the world is going to crash now. But, unfortunately, we've got WinFS Beta 1 by August 2005, and that was the most biggest surprise for all of us.
I've started to learn WinFS from 4008, and have currently a set of applications that utilize WinFS Beta 1 Refresh, among them there are some Shell Extentions wrriten by me and wrapped into Windows Explorer itself.

I'm really feeling bad no as WinFS is closed.

Windows Desktop Search even with TxFS willn't ever try to do the work that WinFS does.

That is easy to understand.

Windows Vista Search is so so, better than Windows XP Search of course, but it willn't ever try to offer us other features of WinFS.

RSS is cool, but WinFS Notifications Framework is somewhat.

Windows Vista Sync Center is nice, but features of WinFS Sync are the things that developers need in real.

The whole centralized store for all data, structured, related data system - that was the thing we all waited for.

Dear Quentin, please tell me, will Microsoft try to recreate WinFS in future? If so when do we expect it?
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
PingBack from http://byte.livenet.pl/?p=631
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
So, the underlying technology (i.e. a relational database system) will be shipping with SQL Server (a relational database system)... Groundbreaking!
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
I've just re-read the blog posting and have to hand it to Quentin - great Spin! He took hundreds of words to say one simple thing: "WinFS is Dead".

Quentin has a great future working for MS markeing.

Sadly,we don't get WinFS.
Anonymous
June 24, 2006
This is a very big mistake IMHO. WinFS, as part of Windows, could have been the one thing that would have set Windows, as a platform, years ahead of the competition (MacOS, Linux, ...). It would have been the foundation for a new way to think about organizing (Desktop-)Users data. It would have enabled a whole new concept of data-sharing accross applications. But the only way this could ever have worked would have been if MS put all its weight together and just make a bold statement like: this is how data is going to be organized in the future. The sad thing is that it will be almost impossible for a 3rd party to develop something like WinFS and see it widely adopted. This stuff has to be a core element of the OS, because only then will enough devolpers pick up on it. I actually wrote a blog post on pretty much this topic back in Summer 2005: http://www.danyx.com/node/44

I think this is maybe the one strategical mistake at microsoft that they will regret most over the next 5-10 years.

Daniel
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
http://www.namesys.com/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I was somewhat interested in seeing what would happen from a security perspective if MS were to slap a Relational DB on every client machine running Vista. I am sure that would massivly increase the surface area for attack on client machines..... That said, it had some fantastic functionality which was most intersting.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/200
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
It certainly sounds like you are killing off WinFS. Now why on earth would you do that?

Nobody can accuse Microsoft of being the leader when it comes to innovation, but WinFS was actually something fundamentally new. Without it the newer versions of Windows seem like minor cosmetic upgrades. OS X is already there, in some areas perhaps even ahead of Vista. Linux will catch up.

With Web 2.0+ applications, which OS you are running is becoming less important from a compatibility point of view. So if Microsoft wants to maintain its dominance in the field it can't produce mediocre products. It must take the lead and actually give people a reason to buy a Microsoft OS.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
What a shame and disappointment. Two comments and lessons Microsoft should seriously take to heart:
1. Don't promise what you can't deliver.
2. Serious consider what REALLY matters and add values to your products.

WinFS had to potential to add true value to the Windows OS. WinFS was a true consumer need.

Vista is filled with "glitz" and eye-candy that in the end is not focused on important end-users needs. Take a close look at the Vista feature page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.mspx

What does Vista really have that you can't get from using XP (or other OS), with a few other (not to mention, freely avalable) add-ons? Priorities at Microsoft need to be "realigned".
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.acmevu.com/blog/2006/06/25/winfs-has-ceased-to-be/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Basically meaning that if you want a relational file system, develop it yourself or use Linux. Thanks.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.gizzar.com/random-thoughts/fine-example-of-what-a-blog-shouldnt-be-like/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://fredcpp.wordpress.com/2006/06/25/winfs-update-promesas-incumplidas/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
So, I think you managed to achieve blowback out of not just one but TWO body orifices. Congratulations, I thought that was a special honor only reserved for the White House press secretary.

Let me see if I got the basic gist. WinFS as a client side technology built into the operating system is dead but the smart technology bits will be folded into an enterprise level tool. In short, the ability to have relational data schema is gone for the VERY forseeable future, or until the OpenSource community figures out how to get it to work. Bad news, it looks like they may be close (<a href="http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/5816/1/">Tenor Project</a>).

I am a big Microsoft fan, I like your products. Windows XP is my primary operating system, Office 2003 is my primary productivity environment. Visual Studio 2005 is my primary development environment. I have a special loathing for Mac, but I am forced to utilize Linux for some development and work with dedicated Medical technologies.

From that vantage point, I think that Microsoft has some serious trouble coming their way in the next year. There is a convergence of several technologies, specifically: the Looking Glass Project, the Tenor Project, and KDE 4.0 which provide a compelling reason for me to move from a Windows development environment to a Linux environment.

Specifically, I want and need the relational file system that WinFS promised to be. A revamped SQL server isn't going to give me the functionality I want to have at the Operating System level.

I want the ability to treat individual file types like objects and have universal relationships which is the core functionality of WinFS and why it even matters. How precisely is a re-vamped ADO.net going to allow me to do that?

In addition to the vaporware claim, Microsoft just made a huge strategic blunder. You are choosing to abandon the largest consumer market for a niche market. While I understand WinFS was to be a free add-on, you had many application developers convinced it was end-all and be-all. With WinFS, the added functionality at the OS level would have been huge. I may have finally be able to convince my higher ups to port our Linux Apps over to Windows. Now I think I will be making the pitch that we port our Windows Apps to Linux once Tenor and other technologies become available.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Kinda expected it do die a slow death.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
nice job MS!
you are the best company!!!!
ur making Vista the next ME!
... time to look somewhere else, perhaps OS X?
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://vibrant-solutions.net/blog/2006/06/25/microsoft-cancels-more-features-of-longhorn/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://mdavey.wordpress.com/2006/06/25/winfs-dead/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
bubble memory, voice recognition, WinFS, QED
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.teammurder.com/?p=1558
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
"We've worked on advanced file systems before, and our customers should be happy to know we don't give up on something that's important to them even if we didn't get it right."
-- Steve Ballmer, re: WinFS, 10/19/2005 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2005/10-19Gartner.mspx
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.emalware.freedomsnet.net/wordpress/?p=4
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
This just makes me angry. Usually I am the one sticking up for Microsoft, but this time they just went too far. I don't care if it takes until winter of 2008 - make WinFS happen as a standalong "file system". I've seen beta 1 and I can't understand why they are able to move forward with this. I have to imagine that is internal political nonsense.

I'm very disappointed.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I seriously hope this decision isn't due to conflict of interest with bigger, more mature Microsoft products, but I'm guessing that's what happened.

WinFS was set up to be an MSDE/SQL Express killer. But that lives in a separate product family.

WinFS was also set up to make the Office family of products have to work harder on the front-end by making a level playing field on the back-end. But Office also lives in a separate product family.

Both of those product families are major "premium offering" cash cows, while WinFS would be free in the "non-premium" Windows. It wouldn't offer the "get them hooked on the lite version and force an upgrade when they need more power" upgrade path like SQL Server does.

If you want to change the world with a relational file system, you have to make it absolutely ubiquitous. This means giving it away, no ifs ands or buts. This makes it a foundational platform service for Ray Ozzie's services future, similar to the RSS Platform in IE7.

But the cash cows get more love from Ballmer. People like Gray "Premium Offering" Knowlton who came from Adobe and was put in charge of InfoPath in the Office family keep killing awesome products by refusing to open the doors that would make the product truly ubiquitous. Acrobat wouldn't have taken over the world if its Reader wasn't free. But no, they still believe they can take over the world, one enterprise silo at a time. It won't work. You're fundamentally stuck in the silos, no matter how many you can win over.

I wish WinFS could have been another one of the Windows * Foundation pillars, but I understand the desire to "productize" instead of "foundationalize". All I can say is good luck.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/EntryViewPage.aspx?guid=3b0d23fe-e654-41ce-bc2d-41f88a2fcf39
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
How about we stop crying and organize a petition or something?

I'd say it'd be worth doing.

Anyone with me?
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://larve.net/people/hugo/2005/blog/2006/06/25/the-saga-of-the-revolutionized-file-system-for-windows-continues/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
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Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I've always been a staunch M$ believer but today I've seen the light. I think I'm going to take a look at the Mac OS X. M$ you need to get your SH%$ together.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Wow! Such negativity! It shows just how much these readers do care for Microsoft products!
It's interesting to note that there isn't a single other totally bug-free product available that has delivered on every single feature that WinFS envisioned!

The good point is that some WinFS features Will be delivered! For this, the development team should feel proud. For those portions that aren't being delivered at this point in time, a yardstick indicating their ETAs is definitely in order.

Bob
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I think the key take-away from that Ballmer quote is that very few customers are in a big hurry to move away from the standard hierarchical filesystem. Seriously, who is WinFS for? As a geek I think it's pretty neat, but as a software developer with bills to pay, I don't see the point - are there any commercially interesting scenarios that demand WinFS?

I'm sure somebody will demonstrate such a scenario eventually, and that will give MS some real customer-driven requirements to design around, and that's what it will take to get the WinFS vision into production.

Probably Apple or some OSS group will do the proof-of concept, and MS will embrace and extend as with GUIs, spreadsheets, tabbed browsers, web-based email, etc, etc.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I was going to write about this but it seems like everyone feels the same way I do. I wonder which monkey at Microsoft made this decision. Perhaps this is why Bill has decided to depart from Microsoft over the next couple of years. His visions crushed by, oh I cringe when I imagine, the people that have other ideas of what a schema should look like.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
What you have with WinFS is a chicken and egg problem. Indeed, this is a key problem with all of Microsoft's attempts at "integrated storage" going back to Cairo. It makes no sense to have a WinFS unless the Microsoft utilities and applications make use of it. When WinFS was pulled from Longhorn/Vista (for reasons unrelated to WinFS itself) its fate was largely sealed. All of the teams that had dependencies on WinFS had to go to alternate strategies in order to make the Longhorn/Vista shipment. They implemented as much of their planned functionality as possible this way. They aren't likely to turn around and redo all that work in the release after Vista. I suspect it will take two or three releases for most of them to be ready to make another change to their storage strategies.

So the question then becomes, who will REALLY use WinFS over the next 3-5 years? The answer is ISVs. Well, most ISVs (particularly bigger ones) currently build products on relational database systems. So which is more likely, that you'll get the ISV to use an extensively enhanced SQL Server or a new file system that the system itself isn't even using? Well, the answer is the former. And that's what I think this strategy change embraces.

When Windows is ready there is nothing to prevent Microsoft from creating a special "System Instance" of SQL Server that can be used as a Relational File System. Nor is there anything to prevent them from offering a more file-systemish API on top of that instance.

Nor is there anything to prevent those Microsoft applications that are already SQL Server based (and there are a lot of them, including portions of Office) from using and exposing the WinFS technologies that make it into SQL Server.

So it IS fair to say that WinFS is dead, and I wish Microsoft had just said that. I think Quentin tried to say it indirectly, by making the Data Platform reference. Microsoft is less focused on creating a relational file system and more focused on evolving a next generation Data Platform that can be used by all applications. And eventually that Data Platform seems likely to be materialized (in some variation) as part of the base platform. That probably is a better strategy, but it would take days of explaining Microsoft culture before most people could understand why.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Maybe the time is ripe again to have a go at an in memory database? :P
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I remember watching an MS guy in a video telling us that we should architect the apps while waiting for the next WinFS dev release. So I did. And wasted my time.
When I tell my boss that WinFS is dead tomorrow, he'll be willing to re-eval his vision of MS-only future of our company because that was the one thing we wanted to build upon...
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/11/14/640kbOughtToBeEnoughForAnyone.html
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
First the very first time, just now, I seriously thought about getting a mac. Wow.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
"The only measure of a technology's strategic importance and success at Microsoft is the extent to which it is adopted and integrated into other Microsoft products", Michael Herman (about 1990).

Clearly Windows wasn't buying into the promise of WinFS; neither was Microsoft Business Solutions.

The fact that the WinFS technologies have been picked up by SQL Server helps insure they will eventually ship.

It sounds like a great decision.

p.s. I would also guess this is, in part, an example of the Ozzie Effect taking hold at MS.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Parece que a Microsoft decretou o fim do WinFS, o revolucionário sistema de arquivos que a empresa pesquisa desde os anos 1990 ( então, sob o nome de "Object File System" ). Inicialmente anunciado como parte do Windows Vista,...
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
WinFS or Windows File System, what was supposed to be a part in the WinFX has been declared dead. Or...
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.fixmbr.de/index.php/2006/06/26/winfs-endgultig-erledigt/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
This is very disappointing. I think this is a huge strategic mistake. I really hope someone at Microsoft is reading this blog and rekindles this project.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://blog.barad-dur.nl/index.php/2006/06/26/winfs-in-the-fridge/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.john.se/blog/2006/06/26/ms-catches-flack-for-their-announcement-that-winfs-as-a-standalone-product-is-dropped/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://ykud.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/linkz/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://eszczesniak.wordpress.com/2006/06/25/koniec-winfs/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.andreas-kraus.net/blog/winfs-is-dead/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Check out Quentin Clark's blog about WinFS and the article about ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.fchouse.com/archives/microsoft-buries-winfs/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
What a disapointment.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://smokingun.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/winfs-goes-belly-up/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
I've never heard anybody speaking about himself in glory after failing with a project.
Indeed the last 2-3 years nobody honestly believed in winfs.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
In its blog, Quentin Clark (here) is announcing a big change in the availabilty of WinFS technologies....
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://www.c64allstars.de/ourBlog/?p=111
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
The biggest club Vista-Bashers have wielded up to this point just got a little bigger: ...we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release. With most of our effort now working towards productizing...
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
(Jim Thompson is blogsitting TechBlog while Dwight Silverman takes a 2-week unplugged vacation. Dwight will resume his usual TechBlog duties on July 1.) Here's a summary of recent news from the world of Windows Vista: Ed Bott notes that a...
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
PingBack from http://blog.bitxtender.com/2006/06/26/winfs-is-dead/
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
The one and only feature that i would call more than a 10.4-rip off is no offically dead. Here is the report of an microsoft developer in mabushi speak. Or as an independet view : The Fishbowl or Developing on the edge.
Anonymous
June 25, 2006
Really embarrassing:
http://news.com.com/Gates+Wouldnt+change+a+thing/2008-1014_3-6084558.html
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
In case you haven't heard the news, WinFS is dead. At least, what it should have been is dead; the relational...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
So, WinFS seems to have bitten the dust.
It only seems like a fortnight ago, I was wondering what the...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
In this blog entry Quentin Clark writes about the future of WinFS. Apparently the amibitious goal of...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Una de las novedades más anunciadas que iba a tener Vista (anteriormente Longhorn), WinFS (Windows Future Storage) al final no saldrá nunca a la luz, Microsoft dejará de desarrollarlo. Iba a ser una revolución dentro de los sistemas
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
It seems like the WinFS team has tossed in the towel. None the less, the team and its offerings will...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
What is going on at Microsoft these days? From my perspective, it seems just totally out of control.

Their vision for (and support of) developers these days is just horrendous. MS seems determined to confuse and derail developers at every turn.

The recent announcement about WinFX becoming ".NET 3.0" (even though it uses the .NET 2.0 CLR) is another fine example of recent absurdities and "spin oriented" communications:

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2006/06/09/624300.aspx

Whoever is making these decisions really needs to go home.

Seriously.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Goodby WinFS :-(
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Maybe Longhorn/Vista should use ReiserFS 4.0, you'll get most of what WinFS was supposed to be.

http://www.namesys.com/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://throwthemind.com/blog/2006/06/26/best-of-the-interweb-6-26-06/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Innovation in Filesystems?

one word : ZFS

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-05/sunflash.20060502.5.xml

T
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Innovation in Filesystems?

ZFS

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-05/sunflash.20060502.5.xml
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://ctrambler.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/sayonara-winfs-for-now/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://kozan.int6.net/?p=19
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://storagemojo.com/?p=172
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Is "productizing" a word...I don't think so.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://123t.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/microsofts-advanced-winfs-file-system-bites-the-dust/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
It's a shame. It's the only thing I was looking forward to in Vista. What's happening Microsoft ?
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://www.codigo12.com/2006/06/26/winfs-muere-definitivamente/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Will this effect my 360, media or internet experience? nope... does the general public care nope... does it effect the techies and developers that wanted ms to provide something worthwhile, on time and not need a SP less than a year after its release maybe.... You need to get it together MS, Visual Studio 2005 is buggy and inherently flawed that notepad is a far better alternative. If dropping WinFS is going to create a better environment to develop for (MSSQL) and on (.net) then carry on. I don't need WinFS and Aero to complete my work, but I do need a bug free SQL Server and Visual Studio 2005! :)
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
I was -- shocked. Yes, only that would be the word.

Really, after all thouse YEARS, the expectations, the hopes ... What is going ON, Microsoft? This time I am getting worried, seriously. As far as Windows is concerned, I feel the end of an era is in the air.

... and it's the customer's wish. Now how cynical can you POSSIBLY get?

Devastated,
-- Eberhard
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
I am saddened by this. I was looking forward to WinFS - soon. The concept should come around some day. But it might not be Microsoft who does it.

This creates a huge vulnerability for Microsoft. If a competitor would release an OS with this feature, it has the opportunity to gain significant market share. Like AMD's gains on Intel (AMD has the integrated memory controller, Intel failed to do this)
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Please listen to more of your customers then and live up to your commitment to delivering this on the client sans MSSQL.

WE NEED THIS TO DO CROSS APP/VENDOR RELATIONAL FEATURES!

If priority wise it makes sense to delay this 6 months to deliver pieces of it earlier in MSSQL fine but please reconsider and then bring it to the client as promised.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Well, there are already some neat meta data layers to be used with different Windows platforms:

http://www.m-files.com
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Catching up on some feeds over the weekend - via the miracle of GPRS dial up networking over bluetooth (it's one of the cooler things I've seen in a while) - I ran across the news, and then reactions to...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://winmaclin.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/discussions-on-the-fate-of-winfs/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
>>The most visible example of this today is the work we are now doing in
>>the next version of ADO.NET for Orcas.<<

This isn't going to work. Orcas, being marine mammals, do not even have opposable thumbs. I don't see how they will be able to use ADO.NET, unless they come up with an interface for them that does not require use of a keyboard or mouse . . .
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://joseph.randomnetworks.com/archives/2006/06/26/it-represents-a-change-to-our-original-delivery-strategy/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Wasn't an object based file system promised for Windows 4.0?

If you don't remember Windows 4.0 that's because it never shipped either.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Microsoft sold Software Assurance to many corporations whose sole aim was to buy a usable Search function for Windows. Now we're just out of luck for several more years on the desktop side.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
As Tim Bray says "Wow". Here is the announcement post with a huge number of comments. This is discouraging. As...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
(Jim Thompson is blogsitting TechBlog while Dwight Silverman takes a 2-week unplugged vacation. Dwight will resume his usual TechBlog duties on July 1.) Here's a summary of recent news from the world of Windows Vista: Ed Bott notes that a...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://rickmahn.com/2006/06/26/winfs-is-it-really-gone/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://svizzer.wordpress.com/2006/06/26/ms-vista-ohne-winfs/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Some people can, some can't

Sun Announces Availability of Solaris ZFS, World's Most Advanced File System

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-05/sunflash.20060502.5.xml
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
With the demise of WinFS, I think that makes three major projects that Mr.Clark has been in charge of over the last 5 years that collapsed under their own weight.

This one hurts. WinFS was the major reason Vista had a chance of success. Now Vista is reduced to the role of WinXP, SP3.

Nice work Quentin.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://nerd.newburyportion.com/2006/06/a-world-without-microsoft
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
I don't understand this at all. WinFS made it to beta, isn't it just a case of ironing out the bugs? I must be missing something... Seriously, if anyone can explain why they would decide to drop such as promising technology at the beta stage I would love to hear it.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
More Quality Vaporware courtesy of Microsoft, everyone favorite monopoly.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Now that Bill Gates has announced plans to work less at Microsoft after two years, blogs around the world are jumping onto the wagon to announce how Microsoft is going to change and how Microsoft...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
While at Microsoft I was asked to produce requirements for what was essentially an agnostic heterogeneous data store.
Using XML based standards.
Access via XQuery
Cell level security.
Versioning, branching, relationships capable of supporting any arbitrary structure or multiplicity of structures.

The result, after close work with the SQLServer XML team, was a system with a deceivingly simple structure yielding systems of amazing complexity.

Why?
Separation between physical and logical structures allowed both the Data Architect and DBA to achieve their operational goals without having to seriously compromise their goals.
Updates to data structures no longer required long development cycles to implement.
The basic objects need not be shredded to a relational model for storage, security and searching. The XML object in .NET could persist (for all intents and purposes) as an XML object. No more Object Relational mapping (50-60% of mid-tier code) consumes developer time and computational resources.

To fully implement the system however required SQLServer Next (post 2005).
Furthermore numerous data stores with similar properties already in development, leading to potential confusion among developers.

It seems to me that Microsoft has delayed the release of a technology in order to consolidate object data stores, unify developer experience, fully implement all necessary requirements rather than provide developers with an incomplete or evolving APIs.

Traditional RDB models suggest this type of system will suffer from performance difficulties. The prototypes we developed were substantially faster than an RDB. Mainly due to the great work of the SQLServer XML team in supporting the XML data-type and clever insights into the the nature of predicate evaluation.

Will the new server fully support the original requirements - I can't say. However it seems Microsoft is making the right moves to support those requirements.

This is just another point of view on what may be happening behind the scenes. It is not gospel, just educated speculation. If the SQL team continues to deliver on their track record of success, everyone should benefit from the current restructuring.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://www.vistatechnician.com/46/windows-file-system-winfs-dead/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
It's sad to see. I was hoping it to be the one thing that would set Vista apart from the rest...
&nbsp...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Quentin Clark has posted an update to the WinFS update and answers some of the questions that came since...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
There's been a lot of discussion about the recent decision not to ship WinFS as a distinct product, but...
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
While I was developing a Document Imaging Archiving application, I came to a point where I had to decide wether I should store the "Image Files" in a databse BLOB or on save them on the filing system ... I looked at newsgroup postings and found many people saying that we should never store huge file images in database BLOBS.. while others had a completely different view .. at the end I decided to leave such a decision to the end user ..
Now that future version of SQL will support a filing system is the answer to my paradox .. So i expect that my new version of my application will be highly suited to use WinFS as a part of SQL .. So I think that I'm on the right track .. can't wait for the release of such a product ..
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
While I was developing a Document Imaging Archiving application, I came to a point where I had to decide wether I should store the "Image Files" in a databse BLOB or on save them on the filing system ... I looked at newsgroup postings and found many people saying that we should never store huge file images in database BLOBS.. while others had a completely different view .. at the end I decided to leave such a decision to the end user ..
Now that future version of SQL will support a filing system is the answer to my paradox .. So i expect that my new version of my application will be highly suited to use WinFS as a part of SQL .. So I think that I'm on the right track .. can't wait for the release of such a product ..
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
I strongly believe that Vista except the extra security is just a circus without winfs!!! I dont care if a cartoon dog or cat or lions helps me do my work by asking me sily questions. WHAT I NEED IS A SERIOUS OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWING WHAT I WANT TO DO AND DOING IT BEFORE I THINK IT. Thats what i think winfs would do. put my files in an order with their subject without looking in the filename. I DONT CARE ABOUT THE AMAZING GRAFIX. Please look to vista's "what's new?"! Is this a new operating system? This is NT4 with new interface.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
M$ can´t develop anything that someone else haven´t. Always been this way.
New features will come but in the ordinary way of accquiring the features from small brilliant developers who spend their life developing cool stuff.
You should change slogan to "If we can´t make it -well buy it"
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
No surprises here - MS announcing a move of technology from Windows to SQLserver. Guess which one is the better revenue stream? Lots of people want what WinFS has promised, now you will need to pay out even more to get it.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://ira.abramov.org/blog/?p=17
Anonymous
June 26, 2006

#define winfs(f,m) fopen(f,m)

There's your d*mn WINFS. Now quit your whining.
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
Anyone interested in alternatives for WinFS should try M-Files (http://www.m-files.com/). It has a real meta data layer and fast searches (meta data & file contents) etc... Why would we even need WinFS when we have this kind of product?

You can categorize files without needing any traditional folder hierarchy (dynamic views), it is usable from remote locations, searches are fast (indexed) and this product is closely integrated to Windows (you can use it just as any other disk drive etc, from command prompt and all the applications)
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://cyberportal.ru/2006/06/27/microsoft-ne-budet-vyipuskat-winfs-v-kachestve-otdelnogo-komponenta/
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
"Vaporware"
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
As of 6.23.2006 Quentin Clark made this post&nbsp;stating in a nutshell that WinFS is going to be rolled...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Am letzten Freitag wurde die Entscheidung bekannt gegeben, dass wir WinFS nicht als seprates Stück Software...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2006/06/23/644706.aspx
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
This last weekend Quentin issued a press release via two posts on the WinFS blog announcing that WinFS...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
I can see the entry in the Encyclopedia of the Future - Microsoft is dead and failure to deliver WinFS killed it.

Without WinFS how do you plan to effectively integrate the desktop and server versions of Windows and how do you plan on delivering a product that anyone wants to buy?

The average computer has millions of files on it these days and until a relational model for file handling can be established there is no point in continuing to expand the capacity of computers. With Moore's law comes the fact that the complexity of information increases - and that this becomes unmanageable. Quite frankly I struggle to see why anyone would ever buy Vista.

Google aims at organising the world's information. They reckon that it will take another 300 years or so - but I'm fairly sure that Microsoft will not be around anymore then. If we cannot find an effective filesystem on the desktop and server then the effective filesystem will be the web and search will remain the killer app.
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
PingBack from http://043h68.blogs-e.org/?p=78
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
A blog posting from the WinFS team
caught me a bit by surprise today. Apparently I wasn't the only one,...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Those of you eagerly awaiting beta 2 of WinFS should
note that WinFS has been canned. Well thats my...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
It isn't much of a surprise but apparently WinFS is pretty much being scrapped. You can just read through...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Fuente: http://www.nuberos.net/Blog/tabid/153/EntryID/219/Default.aspx
A raíz de un post en el blog...
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
This is great...

...
>>The most visible example of this today is the work we are now doing in
>>the next version of ADO.NET for Orcas.<<

This isn't going to work. Orcas, being marine mammals, do not even have opposable thumbs. I don't see how they will be able to use ADO.NET, unless they come up with an interface for them that does not require use of a keyboard or mouse . . .
...

Anyway, I am sad as a dev and mad as a shareholder.
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
'nuff said. I was hugely disappointed when they started to pull Vista apart in order to get a decent implementation date. But was mollified in knowing that a separate incarnation would at least produce WinFS.

But, I'm happy - HAPPY I tell ya! - to learn that WinFS is well and truly ....well, pushing up the daisies...joining the choir invisible...you know the rest. Because it means my fallback plan of going over to the DarkSide (Apple) is going to be a reality. And I can finally acknowledge that Jobs is my fahhhhther.
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
It's a shame the relational file system is not coming out in longhorn, but we will see these unstructured data in the relational data store and this "rich data" functionality and the non-DBA automation in other future products, namely Exchange Server and Active Directory. Both products are built on top of the ese engine and will soon be built as part of the sql engine. I would like to see multi-master replicated sql servers.
MSFT wants to pool the development talent with an understanding and expertise of a similar API set. It's getting to expensive to built, test, debug and support multiple technologies. If they can focus on one "Data Platform Vision" Microsoft can inovate and build better products faster. Seems to me WinFS isn't ready for primetime and that's good that microsoft isnt adding a version 1 product in their OS. Microsoft can't afford to ship bugggy products, just like Boeing can't make products with defects. The profit margins increase substantially with quality and costs also scale when people use microsoft bugware. Unfortunately, when the stakes are higher and we hold MSFT to a higher standard, their costs increase as does the development cycle.
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
PingBack from http://www.davecentral.net/2006/06/27/ms-dumping-winfs/
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Marketeering speak:

"It's great technology and we are super-excited to be productizing this way."

Engineering speak:

"WinFS is dead."
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
WinFS is dead. Long life to the relational database.
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
PingBack from http://vnoel.wordpress.com/2006/06/28/winfs-est-mort/
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Why, G.T., I wasn't aware you needed a hat!

Stop by my office on the second floor and pick one up - I've even got some super-sized ones!
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Oracle has some interesting file server type capability with their XMLDB feature in their database.
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/xml/xmldb/index.html
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
It would seem to me that only a few of the people posting here have installed a recent WinFS drop, tried any samples, or at least understood the most recent implementation of WinFS. Most are likely not developers either. (I don't mean you, of course.)

If you can't understand exactly how all of WinFS can be phased in, maybe it's because you (we) don't work on the WinFS team. If you can't imagine how it might be done, then maybe you haven't been keeping up with the overall direction of things.

Has no one seen how WinFS easily sits "beside/on top of" NTFS and plays nice with existing apps? How it already is a combination of the things described here?

Why can't SQL Server Express become an invisible part of Vista, delivered as R2 or SP3 or whatever they want to call it? I think they can work out a favorable OEM licensing agreement with themselves. Why can't creation of WinFS objects show up as a simple [Attribute] on your class? Or, why can't a new namespace yet emerge that makes "storage" a unified no-brainer?

These things will come, and you will have "WinFS". Seems most of you will fail to recognize it, and you will just be in some other blog railing on some new perceived MS idiocy, but you'll be using your slick new WPF/"WinFS" powered bloging dohickey that is seemlessly integrated with all the other apps and the data store on your machine.
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
luckily we got SemFS for Linux.

join the project

http://semfs.ontoware.org/
Anonymous
June 27, 2006
Well according to the WinFS Team themselves, what was supposed to be the new milestone of file storage...
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
PingBack from https://blogs.msdn.com:443/hans_vb/archive/2006/06/28/649587.aspx
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
see... if you windbloze users had listened to us from the start, you'd be using a proper operating system and software (gnu/linux) and you wouldn't now have to look for an alternative to the Microsoft Windows 'Promises' operating system...
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
WinFS: What&rsquo;s up?
Readers who follow Microsoft news and blogs already have probably seen the buzz...
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
PingBack from http://devv.com/blog/index.php/2006/06/26/era-uma-vez-um-projeto-winfs/
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
Pingback from <a href="http://www.seven-sigma.com/archlever/2006/06/promises-kept-credibility-gaps-and.html">http://www.seven-sigma.com/archlever/2006/06/promises-kept-credibility-gaps-and.html</a>
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
PingBack from <a href="http://www.seven-sigma.com/archlever/2006/06/promises-kept-credibility-gaps-and.html">http://www.seven-sigma.com/archlever/2006/06/promises-kept-credibility-gaps-and.html</a>.
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
WinFS a fost anuntat cu surle si trambite ca fiind noul sistem de fisiere din viitorul sistem de operarea...
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
As Microsoft blogger Quentin Clark eloquently put it, "Wow."At the recent TechEd conference in Boston,...
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
This is pretty pathetic. I too had seen WinFS as the only substantial paradigm shift in OS design in a long time. Vista seems now truly to be mere "Windows dressing” - another GUI overhaul. My apps fly around! Golly.

WinFS promised radical improvements in the way people worked day to day. Data is, after all, the crux of the thing. WinFS had the potential of making a truly data-centric OS, of exposing metadata to every app on the system and letting end users invent new value by connecting the dots in ways never imagined by individual vendors.

I'm getting tired of defending the value MS brings to the world to advocates of open source, MacOSX and the like. When Microsoft makes promises so publicly and for so long it is astounding that there can be a viable rationale. The damage to the good will among their core supporters is enormous.

Was it as simple as this: Someone at MS (someone with more booked revenue than the WinFS crew) saw WinFS as a threat to the SQL business? That ISVs would provide SQLServer analogs using the WinFS plumbing - that WinFS would essentially cannibalize the SQL Server biz? If so it's a clue that MS sees their increasingly cloudy future revenue resting on server products and that they're conceding inevitable defeat in the desktop OS market, at least in terms of competing on real innovation. WinFS was a meaningful OS differentiator. It was a way of “out Googling” Google and could have played a strategic piece in branding MS as relevant in search technology.

Bummer.

I’m going to go and download the Google Desktop search tool. MS had their chance.
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
I am starting to have little confidence that we will see the features of WinFS OR ADO.NET 3.0/Entities/ObjectSpaces.

It also seems to be a confusing message to have ADO.NET 3.0 released apart from the .NET Framework 3.0, which includes WinFX, WCF, and all the other new technologies.

How are we to keep track of all the technologies, their dependencies, and their compatibiities when it seems that one hand does not know about the other?
Anonymous
June 28, 2006
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June 28, 2006
PingBack from http://darknessage.ayudaprogramacion.net/?p=141
Anonymous
June 29, 2006
PingBack from http://roadster.wordpress.com/2006/06/29/microsoft-cancela-uma-das-mais-aguardadas-funcionalidades-do-vista/
Anonymous
June 29, 2006
Soy unos pecadores de la pradera y unos mintirosos. Ya sólo falta que el VISTA necesite 3450 GB de memoria para funcionar.
Anonymous
June 29, 2006
I am sorry, but it is shame to use RDBMS as file system. This idea has no perspectives. It is better to implement some object-oriented database management system instead of file system. Some OODBMS like this http://www.shuklin.com/ai/ht/en/cerebrum/
Anonymous
June 29, 2006
One word: "Shame"
Anonymous
June 30, 2006
Clark wrote it:

"It would seem to me that only a few of the people posting here have installed a recent WinFS drop, tried any samples, or at least understood the most recent implementation of WinFS. Most are likely not developers either. (I don't mean you, of course.)

If you can't understand exactly how all of WinFS can be phased in, maybe it's because you (we) don't work on the WinFS team. If you can't imagine how it might be done, then maybe you haven't been keeping up with the overall direction of things.

Has no one seen how WinFS easily sits "beside/on top of" NTFS and plays nice with existing apps? How it already is a combination of the things described here?

Why can't SQL Server Express become an invisible part of Vista, delivered as R2 or SP3 or whatever they want to call it? I think they can work out a favorable OEM licensing agreement with themselves. Why can't creation of WinFS objects show up as a simple [Attribute] on your class? Or, why can't a new namespace yet emerge that makes "storage" a unified no-brainer?

These things will come, and you will have "WinFS". Seems most of you will fail to recognize it, and you will just be in some other blog railing on some new perceived MS idiocy, but you'll be using your slick new WPF/"WinFS" powered bloging dohickey that is seemlessly integrated with all the other apps and the data store on your machine. "

Clark, you just convinced most of us that you don't even understand what we're complaining about, let alone your apparently fuzzy konwledge on filesystems...

I suggest you to study the early WinFS history, the claims made by MS over the years, the original hype etc before you post your next unimpressive yet offending post...
Anonymous
June 30, 2006
No reason to upgrade now : ( . This was the one reason for upgrading. I may as well stick with sp2 and the addons . Its really sad that they put such a spin on what is a complete failure for windows vista. Please tell me how moving these technologies to ADO and SQL will benefit us Windows (Vista users). IT wont. So it is Dead. Atleast be honest and dont insult us with your bogus spin. I am a beta tester for Vista and there is little reason to upgrade now. Somthing that really could have been a Milestone in computing history has now become just another Windows ME. Sad really sad.
Anonymous
July 01, 2006
I know many People have NO Memory, but still.. Remember WINFX has been a demanded as the Ultimate GOAL By visionair Bill Gates. No one else wanted it within Microsoft, NTFS is Great and LOOKOUT and Sharepoint Portal server are great substitutes. Now Bill has left, so there is NO need to continue the path of developing another filesystem that only he wanted, which in the end might be farv less robust than the Open Source filesystems(reisser) It was only a playing tool from Bill and he curiously just left the company. This ain't a coincidence at all.
Anonymous
July 01, 2006
With the user base, respect and popularity that iView has it would do a lot to evangelize the benefits of WinFS/Katmai. Additionally, Microsoft could do what they did with the Creative House Expression and Lookout teams; use the experience gained from those apps to build application. With a little work a Katmai backed information explorer built by the iView team could become the next Windows Explorer. The emphasis on virtual sets, cataloging, tagging, metadata, and visual file manipulation metaphors are already there.

You heard it here first; the acquisition of iView Multimedia was made specifically for the WinFS/Katmai project.

http://www.osreview.com/2006/07/01/winfs-and-project-orange-to-be-reborn-in-iviews-mediapro/
Anonymous
July 01, 2006
PingBack from http://www.miraesoft.com/karel/2006/07/01/bill-gates-has-failed/
Anonymous
July 01, 2006
MS, what are you doing???
This -was- THE oppurtumity to get of one of the biggest problems of information management: say version control, author control, linking files to applications, autoupdate shortcuts, networking FS, and so on and so on.
With WinFS we could get rid of all those stupid and too expensive DMS systems. I expect MS will have a DMS product in their portfolio one of these days....
Anonymous
July 02, 2006
想知道关于WinFS开发的一些内幕信息么？想了解WinFS开发的最新情况么？WinFS团队的BLOG是寻找这些问题答案的不二选择。
以下两篇特别值得推荐：
Monday, June 26, 2006...
Anonymous
July 03, 2006
There are other commercial and open source products for file management, collaboration, and document management that have databases integrated into their architecture. Many of these products have WebDAV support for desktop access, Java APIs for customization, and do other things that WinFS would do only moderately well, or not at all.

Therefore, I'm not sure why this question is being posed as, "If Microsoft doesn't provide an embedded database, we're out of options." Is the core issue the expected integration with other Microsoft server products, like Exchange? The .NET APIs? Or something else?
Anonymous
July 05, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
July 07, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
July 07, 2006
It never ceases to amaze me how many self-proclaimed "experts" on topics come out of the crevices when ANY technology company makes any sort of announcement like this, let alone when it is Microsoft.

Half of you who chastise others for "not understanding filesystems" don't understand them yourself - nor would you be intelligent enough to succeed where apparently MS engineers have failed.

The other half of you are simply MS haters who have nothing better to do than to post ridiculous messages filled with unwarranted proclamations and accusations against MS or whatever technology company you happen to be putting down.

If you have all the answers, why not help the cause rather than speaking out against it? If you don't have all the answers... simply put - shut up!
Anonymous
July 07, 2006
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July 09, 2006
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July 18, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
July 20, 2006
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July 20, 2006
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Anonymous
August 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 10, 2006
PingBack from http://www.freeuser.org/2006/08/10/vista-20-ops-scusate-leopard-aka-macosx-105/
Anonymous
August 25, 2006

Editorial note: there will be a certain type of Drunkard's Walk feel to this post, but that is because...
Anonymous
September 01, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
September 06, 2006
A raíz de un post en el blog del equipo de desarrollo de WinFS, se están alzando muchas voces que dudan
Anonymous
September 07, 2006
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Anonymous
September 19, 2006
PingBack from http://www.casperize.com/2006/09/19/windows-desktop-search-30-beta-2/
Anonymous
October 02, 2006
In this blog entry Quentin Clark writes about the future of WinFS. Apparently the amibitious goal of
Anonymous
October 10, 2006
PingBack from http://aleemkhan.wordpress.com/2006/06/29/winfs-scrapped-whats-left-of-vista/
Anonymous
October 17, 2006
PingBack from http://roldham.wordpress.com/2006/10/17/tagging-vs-folders/
Anonymous
November 23, 2006
Check out Quentin Clark's blog about WinFS and the article about ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
Anonymous
December 05, 2006
PingBack from http://www.office20.com/wordpress/?p=7
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December 06, 2006
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January 09, 2007
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Anonymous
July 04, 2007
While the debate rages on between who provides the best extension for search beyond the web, and on to your local file system. In the near future, it is inevitable that the best results will be obtained by whom ever...
Anonymous
July 19, 2007
PingBack from http://www.5tags.com/2006/06/24/no-winfs-in-vista/
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September 03, 2007
I had the opportunity to hear from Mike (the one behind the Windows Speech Recognition language support
Anonymous
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PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2007/09/04/confusing-the-nature-of-the-confusion-aka-a-belated-apology-and-some-additional-thoughts/
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YAIB -- yet another IBOT blog -- feel free to ignore if they aren't your thing... Prior blogs in the
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