What is WinFS?

By tomwarren
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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  • 2 months later...
  • 5 months later...
Grand Master

Malisk

Posted
Posted

I just found a slightly interesting piece of information from the microsoft.public.windows.developer.winfx.winfs newsgroup, post dated 2005-04-18. It touches on the current state of WinFS and what'll be in place of it in the RTM Longhorn until WinFS is done:

"Virtual Folders will take the place of WinFS until it is ready:

The latest build of Longhorn is engineered with a visualise and organise tool dubbed Virtual Folder. The tool, an advanced version of indexing in Windows XP and 2000, goes beyond search and allows users to view, store, index and retrieve graphical representations of their related application files that are neatly stacked and readily accessible from large graphical folders.

Virtual Folder is reminiscent of early UI builds of WinFS technology, but is based on original Cairo technology planned for NT and advanced indexing technology currently in Windows XP and 2000. WinFS is now planned for release beyond Longhorn"

The info should be much because of what Microsoft's Jim Allchin said in a recent interview.

  • 2 weeks later...
Neowinian

whonotu

Posted
Posted

yeep, you are right: WinFS aint no file system just data storage. got a lil confused cause some of the officals keep calling it a file system. buts it is more like google for the desktop (just another search engine)... dont yell at me i know it can do more than this...

in a few days ill show you what ive founf out (not finished yet)

Veteran

Jason

Posted
Posted
yeep, you are right: WinFS aint no file system just data storage. got a lil confused cause some of the officals keep calling it a file system. buts it is more like google for the desktop (just another search engine)... dont yell at me i know it can do more than this...

in a few days ill show you what ive founf out (not finished yet)

585928014[/snapback]

Winfs is a unified datastore.

  • 3 weeks later...
Veteran

y_notm

Posted
Posted
just wondering if it will search as you type as in OSX...then sort them by most relivent, and giving you a instent result

586017022[/snapback]

Longhorn has featured instant search/filtering technology in every build we've seen, even 5048. Just open an explorer window. I'd also expect, based on how MSN's WDS works, that there will be some kind of taskbar based search box that offers find-as-you-type.

  • 1 year later...
Grand Master

aristotle-dude

Posted
Posted

Winfs is a unified datastore.

Jason, stop insulting other people and acting like you know better than they do. You spout the official buzzwords but you seem to have no clue about what it really is or how it is implimented. It is a layer on top of NTFS. All datastores exist as sets of files in the NTFS filesystem.

There is nothing magical about WinFS. On a conceptual level, it is really no different than the metadata (spotlight) database in HFS+ in Tiger. You are confusing implementation details with how it works. It really does now matter what format the data is stored in.

  • 3 months later...
  • 4 years later...
  • 4 years later...
Rising Star

switch6

Posted
Posted

Hello everyone, I am using my powers to re-resurrect this thread from the grave. Does anyone think Microsoft will bring back Win-FS in Windows 10? Maybe as an add-on? I kind of wish there was some movement on this over the past 10 or so years since it was first announced...

 

Edit: I'm not sorry for resurrecting this thread. :p

Grand Master

Ian W

Posted
Posted

Does anyone think Microsoft will bring back Win-FS in Windows 10? Maybe as an add-on?

One would have a better chance wishing upon a star.

I also don't think you will find many ardent supporters of "WinFS" on this site. I have previously tried to discuss its benefits before

  • 2 months later...
Grand Master

Ian W

Posted
Posted

Does anyone think Microsoft will bring back Win-FS in Windows 10? Maybe as an add-on? I kind of wish there was some movement on this over the past 10 or so years since it was first announced...

I think you will be happy to know, switch6, that functionality similar to what was intended for "WinFS" has made its way to Cortana.

post-483058-0-83566400-1434068626.pngpost-483058-0-49703800-1434068617.png

  • Josh the Nerd
  • Like 1
Grand Master

redfish

Posted
Posted

Most if not all the benefits of WinFS have already been included in the OS in varying ways. 

 

Well, the thing I was most excited about was the self-descriptive metadata system, which really isn't in the OS. Its also a difficult thing to implement, because even if they put it in, it would be hard to transfer a file from a Windows machine to a Linux machine and keep the metadata intact.

 

But it would have been exciting if they could have got it done.

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