Talk:WinFS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject Microsoft Windows, a WikiProject devoted to maintaining and improving the informative value and quality of Wikipedia's many Microsoft Windows articles.

I have added a link to an old F/OSS project which implemented a similar system on top of GNU/Linux to the "External Links" section. Edit as you see fit. 68.174.119.68 23:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Originally scheduled for longhorn? Come on! It was promised at least as early as 1994, well before Microsoft had any concept of Longhorn. Anyone have any reference from that long ago, I'd like to update this page. --Yamla 00:04, 2004 Dec 15 (UTC)

Should we link to similar technologies such as Reiser4?

Does Reiser4 have anything to do with database concepts, metadata? I couldn't tell from the existing article. i.e. how are they similar technologies? Jeff schiller 20:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Done, made the changes as discussed. May come back and rewrite slightly. --Yamla 15:47, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

I question if vaporware really merits an article. Does anyone have any good whitepapers to provide some scientific background to give this article some value? Gmaxwell 23:28, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Don't the links in the reference section provide you with enough scientific background? --soum^সৌমোyasch 14:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Page move? 2 Rewrite 3 "Architecture" section 4 Near complete rewrite 5 Backporting 6 Desktop Search? 7 Criticism of necessity 8 Windows to Drop WinFS 9 Motivation 10 ReiserFS 11 "Failed Microsoft initiatives"? 12 WinFS as Data Storage backend

[edit] Page move?

I heard mentioned [1] that WinFS is now called Windows Storage Foundation. Should the article name be changed? --Cumbiagermen 08:39, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd say wait. Microsoft will probably change their minds a few times before the thing is actually released. WinFS is better for now, because that is what most people use to refer to it. AlistairMcMillan 15:55, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

I rewrote pretty much everything. Notably: Less speculative, more details; a section on "why WinFS?"; revised release schedule timeline; links to OS X components that are comparable to parts of WinFS; information about prior PDC release. In time, it'd be nice to see this article gain the kind of detailed explanation that similar API articles (e.g. MDAC) have. Warrens 19:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Architecture" section

The first paragraph of Architecture needs some help. Some of it is unclear (e.g., "like the thing we names as file system") and it shifts to first person. I've copied it here but haven't modified the original.

"WinFS is built on top of NTFS which provides journaling. WinFS works like the thing we names as file system. We can place standard files into it, but also WinFS is the place where we can store information that is not placed in files but is a representation of the related tables. Yes, WinFS is built from Yukon code. Most parts of WinFS are written in C++. The set of managed APIs are surely written on C#, and as APIs WinFS Services are also written in C# such as WinFS Sync, WinFS Rules. But core parts are written in C++ as they interact on down-level with Windows OS Kernel to get an access to memory and so on."

[edit] Near complete rewrite

The article was not comprehensive enough. It felt like some random notes taken in a presentation. Nor was all of WinFS' capabilities covered. I rewrote it exhaustively. Please comment.

I just rewrote the long article. My fingers are numb with exhaustion. Please help wikify.--Soumyasch 04:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

If someone feels the new version is not good enough, let's have a discussion before it is undone. --Soumyasch 04:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, nice one, Soumaysch! WinFS There is some refinement and flow work to be done, but having the information in there to work with gives us a good starting point. I'm really not a fan of advertising words like "rich" to describe API's, so I may go in and neutralise some of the descriptive language a bit over the next few days. It's one of my favourite subjects... I kinda got this ball rolling back in December, because the subject definitely deserved a good article and I was getting tired of explaining the real WinFS to people. :-) Warrens 06:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Warrens. The article now just needs to be refined. --Soumyasch 08:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Backporting

Will WinFS be made avaidable for free to previous operating systems through Windows Update? mastodon 16:10, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Desktop Search?

I oppose WinFS being categorized as a Desktop-Search environment. It goes much beyond that. I agree, initially the most prominent use will be for searching, but its usage is not limited to that. It is a full blown relational database, plus includes a replicator. A lot many things can be done. I myself made a p2p search engine (using WinFS, MS Rave and some others), which, despite not having any centralized index, searched info from all over the network. So, how can it be called just a Desktop search. --soUmyaSch 05:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of necessity

This essay, famously includes the following passage regarding WinFS:

But Microsoft needs to give you a reason to buy Longhorn, and what they're trying to pull off is a sea change, similar to the sea change that occurred when Windows replaced DOS. The trouble is that Longhorn is not a very big advance over Windows XP; not nearly as big as Windows was over DOS. It probably won't be compelling enough to get people to buy all new computers and applications like they did for Windows. Well, maybe it will, Microsoft certainly needs it to be, but what I've seen so far is not very convincing. A lot of the bets Microsoft made are the wrong ones. For example, WinFS, advertised as a way to make searching work by making the file system be a relational database, ignores the fact that the real way to make searching work is by making searching work. Don't make me type metadata for all my files that I can search using a query language. Just do me a favor and search the damned hard drive, quickly, for the string I typed, using full-text indexes and other technologies that were boring in 1973.

I am not saying I think that this article needs a Criticism subsection, but if there is a good reason to implement this whole database system, rather than just doing what Google does in making search work, the article should explain it and cite this seminal article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.105.251.160 (talk • contribs) .

He wrote that article two years ago -- before most of this Wikipedia article could have been written, because the information simply wasn't out there. WinFS is about creating relationships between data, not searching for it. Microsoft didn't do a good job of explaining any of this until mid-2005. Warrens 15:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The whole section, starting with the title, is blatantly POV. I've fixed the title. I don't have time at the moment to fix the section, i.e. by making the "this is why this is good" stuff into "here is the perceived problem and here is how it was addressed (and probably a pointer or two to other reasonable approaches) -Dmh 15:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Windows to Drop WinFS

see http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2006/06/23/644706.aspx for details

[edit] Motivation

I was thinking about changing the "pictures which have person X" example because it can be confused with "face recognition" which I think it's not the feature. Maybe it should be changed to "documents which have X word(s) on them" David Morón 19:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

They aren't the same things though... "pictures which have person X" suggests a relationship between two different types of data. "documents with have X words in them" is not a relationship in this nature; it's just a matter of full-text search... it doesn't demonstrate the concept being discussed. -/- Warren 05:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Then another example should be used because of the reason stated above, i.e. confusion with face recognition which it's not the feature. Any suggestions? David Morón 21:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont think it is necessary to update the example. Suppose, it is changed to something like "a video which contains sting rays", then also your question is valid. Or something like "a document that refers the 'P' hotel" also raises the question how is it identified. However, according to me, the context makes it pretty clear that WinFS is not about how is it identified - whether pattern recognition is used, or manual tagging, or some other rocket science technique - rather it is about what is done when things have already been identified. Also your suggestion doesnt hold, because WinFS is not interested in which document what words are there. Rather, it is bothered about the semantic structure of the document, i.e., what information does it provide. In that sense, the example is perfectly valid, because "a picture containing a person X" also has this info in a sequence of words only, but that is not essenced by WinFS, rather it deals with the fact that the picture is of person X. --soum^সৌমোyasch 11:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ReiserFS

You might want to mention that Linux already has this with ReiserFS, although ReiserFS isn't used by many people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JeffBurdges (talk • contribs).

There are some overlap in functionality between WinFS and ReiserFS 4. But ReiserFS 4 is only in development and not mainstream. Reiser3 doesn't have these. A better comparison would be Storage, but that is also in development. --soum^সৌমোyasch 10:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Failed Microsoft initiatives"?

I'd question WinFS's inclusion in the category "Failed Microsoft initiatives". It's still in development & hasn't been released yet, so it can hardly have said to have failed. Delayed, maybe; but that hardly puts it alongside Microsoft Bob. In accordance with Be Bold, I'm removing it from that category. Simxp 03:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WinFS as Data Storage backend

"Microsoft plans to release all of these products [Windows Mail in Windows Vista, Windows Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Media Player, and Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook]with WinFS as the data storage sub-system in the next 3 years"[2]? :O Am I dreaming? --soum^সৌমোyasch 08:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)