The lead program manager for WinFS, Quentin Clark, has announced that his product is no more -- at least in its current form. Just one week after a slew of WinFS sessions at TechEd, Microsoft has decided not to continue development on the new file system, canceling the expected Beta 2 release.
Although the status of WinFS has already changed a number of times, it seems Microsoft has finally given up on once-lofty plans to completely re-architect the way Windows stores files. The idea of WinFS, or Windows File Store, was to create a "sea of data" that abolishes the need for the standard file and folder hierarchy.
For example, no longer would documents need to be stored in My Documents or images in My Pictures; instead, Windows would simply display the files associated with a particular request on demand. In addition, WinFS could store structured data such as contacts, calendars and more.
The technology, which is based upon Microsoft's SQL Server platform, was originally slated to ship in Windows Vista, but the feature was cut in 2004. The changed prompted many industry watchers to speculate that WinFS was dead, a victim of delays plaguing the new operating system.
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