X-bit labs

Microsoft Makes Windows File System Beta Available

by Anton Shilov

[ 08/29/2005 | 11:46 PM ]

Microsoft has released the first beta of its Windows File System (WinFS), which has been talked about for about a decade now, for Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers. The software giant, which will not include the WinFS into its Windows Vista, describes WinFS as a revolutionary storage platform that would include schemas for everything from images and documents, to people, tasks and events.

“Beta 1 is by no means early or late. And it will still be in beta by the time Vista ships,” Quentin Clark, director of program management for WinFS, told MicrosoftWatch web-site.

Microsoft officials said Beta 1 runs on Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 2 or “higher” releases. It does not run on Windows Server 2003, Vista Beta 1 or Longhorn Server Beta 1 though. While Vista will not include advanced file system, it will include a so-called indexing technology, which will improve search abilities of the operating system.

“We’re continuing with the indexing technology that will be part of Vista. A lot of the work done there (in Vista) was work my team and the Windows Explorer teams did. WinFS will give you more of the context. It will provide an explorable relationship between two pieces of data,” Mr. Clark noted.

“Originally the main benefit of WinFS was that you’d essentially deal with your files as an SQL database which gives a ton of flexibility in how you organize and manage data on your local, network, and Internet accessible machines,” said a software developer, who asked not to be named.

“That’s still the main benefit in my mind, but in Vista, they are making use of the NT File System’s (NTFS’s) streams – attaching keywords and such to the files – to make them much easier to index and find quickly. The limitation here is that it’s not a database really, just a faster way to find files using the traditional search techniques. The other limitation is that it's local PC only, whereas WinFS has the potential to work across a network, if you're using a WinFS-based server,” the programmer claimed.

• MicrosoftWatch: Microsoft Makes WinFS Beta 1 Bits Available.