Longhorn Drops WinFS Support

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Week+in+review%3A+Resuscitating+Windows/2009-1083_3-5327715.html?part=rss&tag=5327715&subj=news.1083.5' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Week+in+review%3A+Resuscitating+Windows/2009-1083_3-5327715.html?part=rss&tag=5327715&subj=news.1083.5</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Microsoft's drive to Longhorn took an unexpected turn this week as the company strives to meet its deadline for the ambitious Windows revision. The company on Friday announced a new road map for Longhorn. The changes--removing some features, including the WinFS storage system, and altering others--are designed to let Microsoft have a test version of the software next year and a final release for desktops and notebooks by 2006. A server release is planned for 2007."</i><br /><br />Well that sucks. :? I was looking forward to WinFS specifically for it's enhanced ability to catalog media files, and I was hoping it would be network friendly, finally allowing me to have a decent experience with Windows Media Player and media in more than one location. Maybe by 2007...? :roll: There's an <a href="http://news.com.com/Gates%3A+Longhorn+changed+to+make+deadlines/2008-1016_3-5327377.html?part=rss&tag=5327377&subj=news.1016.5">interesting interview</a> with Bill Gates that's worth reading - the decision makes more sense after I read it.

[Mike Temporale]

WinFS was one of the bigger changes/enhancements, and I was really looking forward to a more modern file system. &lt;sigh> oh well. :(

[Gary Sheynkman]

wow ok.....mac os x for me then...their search function is similar to winfs and now that winfs is out..

[Mojo Jojo]

wow ok.....mac os x for me then...

While I might say the delay is disappointing, the cutting back of features is disappointing, not releasing a 64 bit os version of XP is disappointing, the security holes are disappointing, the abundant number of viruses is disappointing... uh... Windows does have some nice features like applications compatibility... oh wait SP2... screen savers?

Okay, I am little biased and I am picking a little fun. But seriously Windows has some decent aspects and all I can recommend is to evaluate your needs throughly before making a change like that. That way you will enjoy your move to Apple even more.

[Crocuta]

In the instant case, the things Gates says make sense. They have a decision to deliver a product in '06 without WinFS or in '07 with WinFS, and given that XP is already a few years old, they really need to move on and get a new OS version out. I get it.

But what I don't understand is what they've been doing all this time. I mean, they first started talking about this database file system way back around '98 or so. It was going to be a part of the OS that we now know as XP, but they couldn't get it ready on time and so they pulled it and stuck with NTFS. Did they just stop working on it until recently or have they really been working on this one thing for all these years and are still unable to complete it?

I'm not really worried about it in the big scheme of things, though. My gut feeling is that Longhorn will be the one in which MS tries to lock us down with big brother DRM on all software tied to your specific system. If so, that'll be when I have to finally move on over to Linux or MacOS, and I'm not really in a big hurry to do that.

[Suhit Gupta]

I am really disappointed to hear this as well. However, I am not so surprised after having tried Longhorn only 2-3 months ago. It was buggy and looked no really different an Windows XP. For them to add something as major as the WinFS as well as change the entire GUI would be a herculean effort and I think it is better for them to delay it than put out a buggy product. My only concern now is - what's new in Longhorn? It might have been better if they perhaps delayed Longhorn for a little while longer and put out an XP SP3 or SP4 instead at that time. Hmm... hard choices.

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

For them to add something as major as the WinFS as well as change the entire GUI would be a herculean effort...

Well, keep in mind that the Avalong graphics engine will be coming out before Longhorn, so that part is actually going to be early. So it's not all bad news. :-)

[James Fee]

Well its not really important for home users. WinFS is a much bigger deal for those of us looking forward to Longhorn server, the client version of longhorn doesn't really leverage WinFS the way the server version does.

Don't get too excited about Avalon getting here. I've heard that its being "dumbed down" too so it might not be as graphical as we had been reading it would be.

Lets be honest, Longhorn must come out in 2006 no matter what. WinXP will be too old and any delay could hurt sales on new computers.

[Felix Torres]

There seems to be a few misunderstandings about the longhorn components...

1- As far as I can tell, from a variety of tech sites around the web, (WinSupersite has a good summary) WinFS is the relational-database file system. This has been the holy-grail of file systems for twenty years and *nobody* has managed to produce one that had full functionality *and* ran fast enough to be usable. MS has been working on this for 15 years since the early days of the CAIRO project. Its a tough nut to crack even without adding the need to be compatible with twenty years worth of existing software.

2- The advanced desktop search function is *not* part of WinFS so it *will* be available when the new OS ships.

3- The new graphics rendering engine, Avalon, and the Indigo Web-app APIs *will* be ready *and* will be available for XP, too, apparently. This is a big change as the retrofit will allow most Longhorn Apps to run on XP systems, providing developers a bigger base of systems to target so they don't face the transition problems in getting native apps out the door that Apple had during the early Mac OS days. This is actually a big plus and probably explains the 06 ship date; scuttlebutt is that Avalon is almost ready to go *now* and so is Indigo. The component that is two years away from working anywhere is WinFS and, in fact, it will only ship on Longhorn client and Longhorn server. Realistically, it is Longhorn server that most needs it since the parts of the new filling system, the rich-media object stores, are *apparently independent* of WinFS.

So the advanced digital media management functions will be available in early 06.

Considering how long MS has been working on this stuff and how much they have reportedly completed, it makes sense to ship what they have ready to go--full betas start in early 05--instead of letting the tech (and competitive advantage) go to waste waiting for the relational database engine.

What will ship in first-half 06 is apparently closer to 90% of what was promised than it is to 60% as the buzzword count would make it seem.

Not great but hardly a disaster and not likely to significantly change the OS landscape. These are, after all features that their competitors don't have, either. Indigo is the key component here and nobody else has anything like it on the horizon.

[Suhit Gupta]

So I asked the question - what really is new in Longhorn if they are dropping WinFS and maybe even Avalon. Well, this PCWorld article tries and answer that - http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117695,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp

Suhit

[Crocuta]

So I asked the question - what really is new in Longhorn if they are dropping WinFS and maybe even Avalon. Well, this PCWorld article tries and answer that - http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117695,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp

Suhit

Did I miss something or did the answer to your question boil down to, "trust me, you'll really want Longhorn"? :D

[Suhit Gupta]

So I asked the question - what really is new in Longhorn if they are dropping WinFS and maybe even Avalon. Well, this PCWorld article tries and answer that - http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117695,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp

Suhit

Did I miss something or did the answer to your question boil down to, "trust me, you'll really want Longhorn"? :D
Haha, something like that. Isn't that the MSFT way - trust us, you will want it. ;-)

Suhit