Next Versions of Windows Resurfacing WinFS?

In this blog entry by James Kyton, he talks about the next versions of Windows (Fiji and Vienna...in that order). Fuji seems to be Vista 1.1 as it is adding features that were dropped.  Of most interest to me is the fact that the WinFS name is rearing is head again.  The article states that for Fiji:

"WinFS will be applied over NTFS to give us Virtual Folders (or maybe just Saved Searches)"

And for Vienna:

"WinFS (or its sucessor) will replace NTFS. No more drives, or files/folders location to worry about. File Management will be done through applications, which will automaticlly index and sort the files they support."

No timeframes were mentioned, but I've been waiting for WinFS since Cairo was announced so I am not holding my breath.  It still seems to me that creating WinFS by using SQL Server technology makes sense, but until row-level security in the SQL Server engine is supported I don't see how that will happen. 

What do you think?

UPDATE: Fixed mispelling of Fiji.  Thanks whoever pointed it out.

Comments:

The codename is Fiji not Fuji.

Anonymous (Posted Saturday, December 30, 2006 )

You missed one Fuji in the second sentence.

Also timeframes were mentioned Fuji, err.. Fiji in 2008 and Vienna in 2010.

The Same Anonymous (Posted Sunday, December 31, 2006 )

But saved searches are possible now in Vista. What we really need is to break open data stored across applications and open up their data. Indexed content search will not solve the problem.

I get the impression that SQL CE is playing a part in this.

Joe (Posted Tuesday, January 02, 2007 )

Don't get me wrong, I am not convinced of the real need for WinFS...but I do think its compelling to have relationships between objects in a file system...WinFS was never just about search.

Shawn Wildermuth (Posted Tuesday, January 02, 2007 )

I would have thought row level security in SQL server would be pretty easy to implement.

I mean you have everything you need right now. You could easily make a Table Value Function that you can call in your SQL statements that checks an ACL first. And SQL Server could make this automatic for tables flagged in some way.

I think the real problem with WinFS is not row level security, but multi-directional security. Currently every document has only one path, but in WinFS it was always possible to imagine scenarios where a file/folder appears in lots of places... now think what happens when someone changes the security on a folder? Does that effect all paths? If so it the conceptually correct?

I have a lot of thoughts on WinFS on my blog: www.base4.net/blog.aspx?Tag=WinFS and I remain completely convinced it will be absolutely awesome if it ever sees the light of day.

Alex James (Posted Wednesday, January 03, 2007 )


 



 
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