Winrumors reports that Windows 8 might finally get WinFS file system, called now Protogon. http://www.winrumors.com/windows-8-...feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+WinRumors+(WinRumors) Personal view: It is possible that Microsoft restarted the project of WinFS, probably it initially did not work correctly, hence why it was not implement in Vista or Win7. Or that the due to Vista had to be shipped it, they cut it out, and with Vista poor success, they had to hold WinFS development to work on Win7. What do you think? Do you think it this time it will be able to make it out with wIn8? Do you think it will be optimized for SSD's?
I think it's time that operating systems become heterogeneous and all use the same file systems. Suddenly a noticeable portion of computer related queries are gone because it is no longer an issue. Of course this is impossible not just because of the legal issues but because operating system designers have there own idea about what is best. FreeBSD likes to use UFS2, Ubuntu likes to use EXT4. not forgetting of course that there are about 4 different versions of NTFS which aren't necessarily backwards compatible. In some circumstances different file systems are necessary of course (read-only media and the like). Also, a file system that isn't named after some thing meaningful wtf? NTFS, FAT, EXT, HFS, UFS all easy to see where it comes from, but wtf is a Protogen?
I've heard this all before, probably will get dropped because its hard and win8 will just be a bit shinier.
i strongly doubt it will keep that name upon release, if. it's still in beta phase and i don't think ms is ready to be talking about it yet. but i also agree that it is probably the new incarnation of winfs. after their work on it and subsequent integration of winfs elements into ms sql server they might be ready to roll it out in full. it's about time. it's been in development as long as duke nukem forever. heterogeneous os would be nice, but it won't happen. if only ms would have kept on with xenix instead of dumping it for dos, you might have had that reality.
Even then... I doubt it. Filesystem also features security part of files, and folder. This could cause security problems which might be time consuming to solve, as everyone needs to work together and everyone needs to agree to a common fix or improvement, then work on it, and test it.
So what would be the advantage from using this new system? From the article all it seems to be is faster searching.
Based on what is released as information now: You know when you open a folder with lot of files, sometimes the icons or thumbnail takes a moment to show. I THINK, this format can also solve this, and perhaps, even faster access time visible. In other words, it could solve the problem in having to index the system, so you can search anything, anywhere, and get instant results. But also, provide a faster response time when you browse files and folders, and not see icons being loaded. If that is the main advantage of this format, it could explain why Microsoft didn't push this feature in Vista (ie: possibly delay Vista for it's release), or finish it for Win7.
A big reason MS want to reintroduce WinFS or whatever they want to call it, is to push out CIFS. I'm sure it will feature heavily in their Azure cloud platform
From what I recall WinFS was supposed to be a hybrid of a common file system (like NTFS) and a database (like MS SQL Server). It was supposed to be rolled out with Blackcomb, the planned successor to Windows XP. After several years of work Blackcomb as it was intended was scrapped and work started over based on the Windows Server 2003 code. This version was codenamed Longhorn and eventually became Vista. Vista ended up with some features of Blackcomb, although most of the previously touted features were dropped, including but not limited to WinFS, or scaled back heavily.
A Microsoft developer told me that MS could remove or reduce support for open source SMB products like Samba, locking people in MS enterprise heaven and its bargain prices.
the biggest advantage for a normal user if it is winfs, and is implemented in the ways they were aiming for, is relational meta data and plain language syntax searches. it will allow grouping of information based on your own arbitrary terms. like music movies and pictures that relate to berlin, or being able to search your computer for "emails and photos of sveta from odessa, and whats her address?" and the search engine not going... huh, wtf? and instead pulling up all of the photos, emails and her contact from your address book. or in short a huge step forward on the libraries idea and not having to think in computer terms when you're looking for information. though you would still have to have all of the data meta tagged. theres hints that this sort of thing was coming if you look at all of the meta data categories available in explorer. also i highly doubt they have any intention of removing samba compatibility. while winfs or whatever might not be compliant, the underlying bitsteam functions of ntfs would remain unchanged and accessible. too many of their large corporate / government customers and industry partners would get pissed off.
