WinFS Beta 1 Released Early 582
Mouldy Punk writes "Infoworld is reporting that WinFS Beta 1 has been released. The new relational file system for Windows is posted on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This release is designed to offer developers a preview of WinFS capabilities. WinFS will be in beta when Windows Vista ships and will RTM afterwords. WinFS, when it ships, will be available for download for Windows Vista and possible support for Windows XP is being considered. The distribution mechanism for WinFS will be through an add-on download much like the .NET framework is today. Tom Rizzo also notes that there is a new blog dedicated to Win FS."
I wanna know (Score:5, Funny)
Why is this modded funny? (Score:5, Informative)
I for one would like to know what Hans has to say on this fs.
Is Linux Trailing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Reiser4 is technologically ahead of WinFS as a high performance storage layer, see www.namesys.com [namesys.com] for details on its design. When you do this layering the way they did it, with the metadata stored in a layer above the FS rather than integrated into it, you lose a lot of performance while gain the advantage of successfully avoiding dealing with a host of technical issues. We are at least 5 years ahead of them technically in the storage layer.
That said, semantic enhancements matter more than performance, and it is better to do something semantically than to do nothing, and what Linux currently is doing is nothing.
The political support for adding semantic enhancements to Linux namespaces is mixed at best. I worry we will see that death by committee rules, and there will be no belief that each FS should try to innovate in its own way and compete with the others until one is proven the right solution. We are in serious danger of having MS implement bad technology, and Linux having to devote large amounts of resources to copying it in 5 years because we were late and chose to trail rather than lead. If the filesystems were free to compete in semantics, we could have one or several of the Linux filesystems leading them instead.
SQL and the relational model is fundamentally the wrong model for semi-structured data. See www.namesys.com/whitepaper.html [namesys.com] for why.
Technically, I would worry much more about Apple. Dominic Giampaolo is very bright, and well funded. His chances of delivering on a good set of semantics are high because he and Jobs are very sharp, and neither of them is afraid to go where no one has gone before. Our chances of losing technically to Giampaolo and Jobs are high, because we are frankly not well funded, and a lot of us are complacent with semantics that are still pretty much the same as their father's Unix box.
So, in summary, I would say that we are still ahead but losing speed fast.
Thanks for your kind words Hisham.
Re:Is Linux Trailing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could not agree more. I would very much like to see more advances/innovation/inventions out the F/OSS, and here's a place where it has happened but apparently is at the risk of stagnating.
Is there a recommended place (hopefully one of the big distros) where we can get a kernel that supports the hooks you need?
Personally, I'd speculate that these benefits would be a nice point of differentiation for one of the commercial distros; and its proven success in that environment could be a big motivation for the kernel to approve the changes.
Re:Is Linux Trailing? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been watching the fun you've had on lkml and wanted to say don't give up! The work you and your team are doing is wondeful.
If anything, I think you should stop focussing on getting Reiser4 into the kernel and instead start demonstrating the applications of your ideas on semantics. In other words - put what you've built to work outside the kernel and prove to people that they cannot live without a next-generation filing system. It may even mean doing things you have never done before, like creating a new distro derivative.
I know how emotionally draining free software politics can be, we get a lot of that in my own autopackage project. If it gets too much rather than risk burn out, go off and do your own thing for a while. If you really do have a better way people will join your banner ;)
Re:Is Linux Trailing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is Linux Trailing? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with reiser 4 being merged (as I've seen it in the flam^Wdiscussions) is that they seem to implement things that should be implemented at VFS level, not in the reiser 4 code like they're doing now. It's that what is stopping reiser 4 from being merged, not the "ideas" themsel
Re:Is Linux Trailing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is Linux Trailing? (Score:3, Funny)
My father was in a coastal village in deep southern China, between Guandong and Hainan Island. The year was 1911, it was in the waning months of the Qing dynasty. If the stories are true, the house he was born in apparently doubled as a chicken coop. I'd dearly love to get my hands on his Unix box, it'd be quite a family heirloom.
Re:I wanna know (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone will probably have at least partial support for it before it ever even gets out of beta.
And then it will stay only partially supported for 10+ years, just like the NTFS support.
Re:And ... (Score:3, Funny)
Rushed? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rushed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Vista is not Longhorn -- at least, not as Longhorn was envisioned at one time.
Longhorn, it was said, will use WinFS as its native filesystem. (It will include support for fat32, ntfs, fat16, iso9660, and possibly fat12, but these will be "legacy" systems, deprecated, and probably not supported for the main filesystem where the OS is installed, only for additional filesystems, such as on removable drives.) Vista will still use ntfs as its primary native fil
First post. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First post. (Score:3, Funny)
Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:2)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Informative)
Trivia bit: Before NT4, you couldn't install NT on an NTFS partition. FAT was the only way to go. The install WOULD immediately convert the partition to NTFS on first boot, but it wouldn't actually install as NTFS.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:2)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the case with XP. I've tested it out -- use the install disc to format to NTFS, then switch over to Linux. It'll ID it correctly as NTFS.
Where exactly does it say that the partition ID has to match the filesystem that is currently on the drive? Did you try actually mounting it to make sure?
I have no idea what Windows does at that point in the install process, and it really make no difference at all.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, by default the NT installer program would create a FAT partition and then convert it to NTFS. That was the order set up in the installer app.
If, however, you formatted the drive first in another NT machine as NTFS, you could then install directly to the NTFS partition.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
The bu^H^Hfeature is that you no longer get^H^H^Hneed to know where your files are.
Some idiot UI designer probably wrote a paper about how Windows users are confused as to where their files are located.
Rather than addressing the root of the problem -- the even bigger idiot
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:4, Funny)
The root of the problem is that most people do not care where their files are located. They just want it to work.
By the way, I think something is wrong with your keyboard.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Funny)
You mean the ^H's? He's probably using Lunix. It's 2005 and they still can't get the freaking backspace key to work.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Insightful)
That attitude (of the most people you are talking about) to me is just like, for instance: ``I don't want to learn about strings and notes, I just want to play the guitar!''
People will have to get it into their heads that computers are complicated things and you need some basic understanding of how they work before being able to use them. Have you ever seen a `My Documents' folder of someone who doesn't want to know about computers? No wonder they're always complaining that `it doesn't work.'
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
And people like YOU will have to get it into your heads that it is the job of the technologists to take things which are inherently comlicated, and spend as much time as possibly making them less so, up to a point where interaction with the technology is as simple as pushing against a door to open it.
Your guitar analogy is quite idiotic as wel
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
Usage of common household appliances, like television sets, microwaves, and computers, should NOT take any specific effort to use. And if they do, then they're either ill-conceived, poorly designed, or in an unfinished experimental stage.
I think computer interfaces are still in the unfinished experimental stage. Until they come out of that, people will have to learn how to operate computers.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to use a modern cell phone, do you need to know how it stores data, what operating system it uses, or how it's address book is stored in the phone's hardware? Or do you simply need to know that is has the capability of saving your friends' phone numbers and know the simple process of navigating through this list?
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
General purpose computing devices will never, ever be as simple as you wish. Notice that all the devices you list are single-function devices; they have a finite set of states and are capable of doing only one job.
A computer is nothing like a toaster. It is a general purpose device with an almost inifinite number of states. It's "jobs" are mearly abstractions. It can do one, many, or no jobs at any
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I think that's exactly what WinFS is trying to do here. It's creating a specific, simple interface (the WinFS browser) to do a common, well-understood job (finding and organizing your files). The fact that it does so in a manner alien to you does not mean it is wrong or stupid.
There's a very good analogy lesson here with MP3 collections. Back when I o
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that "pushing a door" is a simple analogy, but our abstraction is getting better all the time. One should not need to know how a computer works in order to undertake a task which does not directly involve "making the computer work". You shouldn't need to have to understand paths to save a file. I don't want the file with the name "letter to Bob" and last week's timestamp in the work subdirectory of the text docs folder with the correct file type. I want the letter I wrote to Bob last week. To a tech
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I have seen the "My Documents" folder of my mother's account. And as you say she has like 500 documents, including MS Explorer saved files AND their corresponding folders to hold images and misc binary files.
Yes I know that for me it is really stupid, as I tend to order every thing on its subfolder. For example let me tell you how I order my music:
blah blah, you get the idea.
And, althoug I have heard the marvelous things that programs as iTunes, Win.Media Player, Winamp Media Library or even MusicMatch jukebox do to order music libraries I still cant get one that I find really useful.
Maybe for a lot of us that is THE way to do it, but see, my mother, as a lot of computer users is just a Biology teacher. She knows the minimum required to do what she NEEDS to do in her computer (Word, Excel, Power Point) you just need to understand that people does not have the model in their heads, I mean, the model of the file system, that you/we automatically recall when we open the Windows Explorer/Knoqueror/etc...
That attitude (of the most people you are talking about) to me is just like, for instance: ``I don't want to learn about strings and notes, I just want to play the guitar!''
Now, as an example, Think about the WinFS like Gmail, I really found the Gmail approach useful, more if I have thousands of mail. If you see, desktop search bars have gained a lot of acceptance these days.
That is because we no longer know what each file in our computer does, and we do not have to care. We need to get exactly the file that we need when we need it, and you can do that searching.
Now before ranting about the facts I gave, just take my last paragraph and replace the word file with mail and instead of a Microsoft technology you will have a Google technology, is it bad? no, I really dont care where all my files go, if I need to have some files classified then a Tag would be great. otherwise I just want the OS to identify it when I ask for it.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Interesting)
Bah. Most people use their computer because they have to in order to do work. And, honestly, it's not such a terrible request that the computer be easier to use. Half of the things that the user is required to manage sh
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Funny)
One of these days they're going to invent an operating system that recognises the Backspace button. The possibilities will be endless! They might even have cars that run on electricity in that future age.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Insightful)
With folders going the way of the highway, you can just heap whatever files you want, wherever you want, without all of that path confusion. Deal with namespace collisions either with longer, more descriptive file names, unique file identifiers, or a mixture of the two.
You might find it idiotic, but I find it as the best way to organize my files and find what I want, as fast as possible. Pair it with a program that can rip my files apart for all of the metadata that it can give up, index that along side the files, and no file is ever more than a few mouseclicks away. Best yet, instead of having to delete and move files around, which thrashes the disk and makes the filesystem a disaster, the filesystem can effeciently use space because it can know exactly how big the files are, and start sticking files right up next to each other. And if I were designing the UI for this thing, you'd be able to change over to a pane, change the SQL query, and poof, the folder displays what you want.
No more rediculous symlinks. No more folder paths, executable paths, etc. Better isolation of executable files and libraries and configurations, verses userspace files. Honestly, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages IMO.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a reasonable solution for a technical user.
It's hard enough to get people to ID3V1 or V2-tag their MP3 files.
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:3, Insightful)
People can't update their ID3 tags. But they can download a program like MusicBrainz which is a database of ID3 tags that those of us with the time do things right.
To be truthful, the worse metadata that exists today in my opinion is that of Photos, and
Sounds like an AS/400 to me (Score:5, Interesting)
Your description sounds an awful lot like what the AS400 team used to describe when I worked at companies that had good AS400 techies. It hybridized the mainframe-style contiguous file allocations with an integrated RDBMS that tracked the file information, much as the file information pages do with other file systems.
I find it interesting that so many "advances" other systems are making nowadays sound exactly like what the AS400 developers used to talk about. Using databases to store configuration information. Making the database an integral part of the OS. Virtualizing all storage so the system could shuffle files based on size changes and usage patterns to minimize head thrashing. Using wizards/forms for adding new software, changing configurations, etc.
I guess it's all considered "new" because so few people ever actually learned anything about the AS400 internals -- they just used them and counted on the system to do it's job properly.
Re:Sounds like an AS/400 to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Words can't even describe
Re:Sounds like an AS/400 to me (Score:4, Informative)
You can read more about it at the relevant Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] article.
So then what is Delete (Score:5, Interesting)
What then is delete? How does a user distinguish between "remove an association from the blob of data" vs "remove this blob of data altogether". Should the blob automatically delete when you remove all metadata around it? If not, how will you find it again? If so, would you really want data vanishing just because you removed a keyword?
What does partial backup look like on a system? How can you have a combination of partial backups and know you have a whole? I can do that with a set of five directories. Let's say you tag a set of files with "project fred". But one small file, that you almost never care about, gets tagged with "project ferd". What good is the ol' Fred backup now?
At some core level these blobs of data that users place on a system need ONE meaningful location where they always "are". You need someplace where the file will always be, no matter what other associations you remove. You need somewhere you know it will be to assure yourself EVERYTHING you care about is backed up or moved between systems.
The perfection you seek can just as easily be obtained with files in directories that allow metadata on top of them and things like smart folders that are essentially queries over the user-defined and automatically extracted metadata. In fact I think that's what WinFS does anyway (just like OS X does today).
If you really like the system you describe nothing is stopping you from storing all your files in a DB and writing an explorer on top of that. Yet all this time, things like that have never taken off in the market.
Some things do not take off because the technology to make the useful has not yet arrived. But some things simply never take off because in practice they are not practical, and the filesystem as a full-fledged database with no default structure is one of those things.
Re:So then what is Delete (Score:3, Interesting)
You haven't worked with many databases then.
The one we use does exactly that -- set the value to NA (similar to NULL, but not at all the same, since an NA value implies a default which is not necessarily 0 or "no value") and the row is removed from the database. Some relational models do the same thing, or force you to d
Re:So then what is Delete (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, backups are an interesting issue that I hadn't thought about with the whole file-as-DB debate.
Backing up a DB is straightforward. In fact, with journals and all that it can be made possible to do atomic backups (ie a backup that captures the state of the filesystem in an instant of time).
However, the issue here is partial backups. Doing a backup of a 400GB drive onto 800 CDs or 80 DV
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Rob Pike's opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
5) Database filesystems - by defile The buzz around filesystems research nowadays is making the UNIX filesystem more database-ish. The buzz around database research nowadays is making the relational database more OOP-ish.
This research to me sounds like the original designers growing tired of the limitations of their "creations" now that they're commodities and going back to the drawing board to "do things right this time". I predict the reinvented versions will never
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us have grown up, and still prefer the CLI. What can you, as a person, improve easier? CLI typing speed or GUI mouse accurracy?
The GUI's strangth is providing you with information. The CLI's strength is in receiving commands.
Now if I could only merge gnome-terminal with nautilus...
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Give it a rest, OK? (Score:5, Funny)
Locking out Linux/Samba clients and servers?
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Informative)
for more information.
Basically, it sounds like the files are stored at the low level as ntfs files, with a relational database wrapping around them, allowing you to treat them as
Re:Is this really a file system? (Score:5, Informative)
It's more than a file indexer for a developer, but just that for the enduser. Right now, it seems Microsoft really just wants feedback on the API's. If any real innovation for endusers is going to come from this, Microsoft seems to hope developers will figure it out.
ext3 was essentially an add-on for ext2. Point being, some of the better improvements don't take reinventing everything.
AHEM (Score:3, Insightful)
All that metadata isn't just going to poof out of the thin air. Metadata where it gets entered (save dialog in office, ID3 tags, thumbnails on pictures, etc.) needs to find it's way into this API, or it needs to be programmatically extracted by background processes.
I actually like the latter, it takes the burden off the applications.
Also, it'd be nice if concepts like the "Recently Used Files" and stuff like that gets rolled into it (that is, recently used is just a metada
Re:AHEM (Score:3, Insightful)
NTFS? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:NTFS? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:NTFS? (Score:4, Informative)
GNOME Storage? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm just wondering if any progress has been made on GNOME Storage or if it's just completely stagnated (a Seth project stagnating? Why I never!). My guess is all he did was some special natural language interface (which should have been an add-on later) and did no real work on a relational file system.
I wish that guy would finish something for once.
Re:GNOME Storage? (Score:3, Informative)
The sytsem worked off the idea of installing a CORBA orb in the kernel to communicate back to userspace, where the query utility was located. This has advantages, but the enormous, gigantic disadvantage of having to have a CORBA orb
Re:GNOME Storage? (Score:4, Insightful)
That being said, I cannot solicit Beagle, as much as it is a part of GNOME. First of all, it's written in C#, which I am against, but even averting that point, Beagle is slow, it's very, very buggy, and for some insane reason, they decided to go with Lucene as an Index server, instead of a fully qualified SQL server which could be connected through ODBC or any other database abstraction method.
I've said these things before and been modified as troll, with people responding with "if you could do it better, do it yourself". Well, this isn't my capacity at this point in time; I'm simply observing and reporting on the product. I understand that it's deep in alpha right now, and I do have hope that it'll get better, but in the meantime, it's connection to C#, Lucene, and fundamental archetecture problems as to where the program is allowed to index makes me doubt it's future relevance.
My point is that we need a database file system, but that Linux as a whole will be in last place to get one. Beagle is a good attempt, but I can't see it as anything more than a graduate project. I offered to port it to C++, a database agnostic implementation, and to add Kerberos/PAM support to it as my Google Summer-of-Code entry, but as I was declined, and because I do need to stay alive and eat, I can't just code it for free.
Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:4, Informative)
However, the only thing I can saw I was pleased about was its performance. On a 2.4 ghz celeron with 512 mb of ram, it ran fine, just as fast as XP on the same system.
What did impress me about a week later was when I took that spare HD I used for vista and loaded OSX on it. Now that looked beautiful, ran fast, ran native OSX apps fine, and my conclusion from that week of OS experimentation was that if OSX ever made it to whitebox computers legally (let's not start this discussion again) it would knock Microsoft out of the water.
Let's face it, few home users will switch to Vista legally. Most will get it with a new computer. My school uses Windows 2000 and probably won't switch to even XP for a while. So go figure.
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:2)
when it becomes available for purchase, you can legally install it on any computer you choose. someone ought to challenge the "EULA" and vendor artificial lock-in. hell, why not buy the ppc version and install it on the ppc computer of your choice... one wonders why DRM isn't fully ubiquitous by now judging from these kinds of decisions. DRM has always been about control and nothing else.
i don't doubt that every other industry will also want some kind of DRM on physical objects too... they just
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:2)
What most people (not most people here though) never understood about laws like the DMCA is that software and hardware manufacturers could control many aspects of their product using simple copy protection schemes and just rely on the DMCA to enforce their rules.
It's not going to stop at printer cartr
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:2)
Well since Beta 1 wasn't put out to "impress" anyone, I'm not surprised at all. You completely missed the point of the beta. It was targeted towards developers, to give them a chance to begin working with Vista's new features. All of the really cool new stuff won't be added until at least Beta 2.
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:2)
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:3, Informative)
it's been my experience that upgrading your os is not always in your best interest. sometimes certain configurations end up worse after the upgrade. programs stop working, peripherals go haywire etc.
it's a good thing most updates allow an uninstall.
Re:Not to sound too offtopic, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's somewhat telling that you were pleased that it ran just as fast as XP on the same system. On my Linux box, when I upgrade the kernel or even KDE, I generally expect better performance than before. I get the impression that OSX users expect the same.
diff -u WinXP Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget DRM. (Score:3, Informative)
There's a reason Vista took so long to develop and it wasn't the end user interface [corante.com]
Re:diff -u WinXP Vista (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably the most interesting to the Linux community is that the services for Unix (SFU) POSIX-compliancy layer is going to be running at the same level as the Win32 execution code. They aren't going to be nested, they're going to be parallel. Theoretically, it might even be possible to replace USER, GDI, and EXPLORER with your favourite X server and DE/WM.
Download? (Score:2)
WinFS sybchronization engine (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll bet it is based on the Unix 'file' command.
What exactly is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
But from what I've heard, WinFS sits atop of NTFS and simply connects it to a SQL database for indexing. How the hell is this revolutionary. You could place all your files in a "My Documents" folder and then make a nice pretty front end to it, categorizing each file, and then hacking the file chooser to use your interface.
I really think Microsoft should have though harder about this and made it a real filesystem with a new structure and layout on disk. It could have really be different and revolunatory, but from what I can tell, it's just a layer now and offers nothing really new or innovative.
Re:What exactly is it? (Score:4, Informative)
Vista==XP (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent! (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously, is there an upside to this system to the casual-to-serious user? Or is it mostly a DRM-delivery platform? I read TFAs, but this sentence hurt me: "(Integrated data initiative is a term used to refer to a group of technologies whose goal is to provide better integration for data..."
Re:Excellent! (Score:2)
I wonder if it runs in Wine? (Score:3, Funny)
but what about the interface to it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "DB based FS" is only as good as the data that you put in, unless you solely want to make virtual folders of "all my MP3s that I warez'd last week from Rancid", but I'd say those sorts of things are going to be in the minority.. and again, depend on the metadata of said pirate MP3s.
Now there will be code jocks out there who would LOVE this sort of thing, since you could probably use it as a halfway decent free CVS replacement, but I'm thinking more of Joe and Jane Sixpack. How is it going to make their AOL experience better?
Re:but what about the interface to it? (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, as you note, the system is useless if you have poor metadata associated with the files. But with good metadata, the flexability/power available to organize and find the information you are looking for is increased by an order of magnitude via dynamic folder creation.
Re:but what about the interface to it? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:but what about the interface to it? (Score:3, Funny)
Or better, how I would use said directory structure to organize pictures with Camille in them for some sort of surprise birthday photo montage?
Re:but what about the interface to it? (Score:3, Funny)
Ok but .... (Score:2, Offtopic)
Ever been to Cairo? (Score:5, Informative)
In 2003? Jesus Christ!
I seem to remember that in 1994, Cairo [wikipedia.org] was all the rage. Hell, it has been an idea since 1991. If I did not toss them out before I moved into my current house, I'd have scans of each individual article in Windows Magazine about Cairo from 1994, 1995, and 1997.
WinFS is not even close to being called "new."
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
Think like a programmer not like a user (Score:3, Interesting)
WinFS Is *Not* A Filesystem (Score:5, Informative)
WinFS is not a separate filesystem. It uses NTFS as the filesystem, but then stores metadata on top of that (the same way other filesystems like HFS+ have for years).
You don't need to reform to WinFS, it's not a filesystem, but a relational database that carries metadata about existing files on an NTFS partition.
Re:Too complicated....... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, of course, things went pretty smoothly. Users were able to easily convert their partitions to NTFS when upgrading (even if they didn't know what a partition was). New PCs came with NTFS by default, and Windows XP+NTFS succeeded largely (unless you're a Linux fanboy and don't want to admit it; in that case it never happened, how could it?). The (Windows) world was a better place now that FAT32 was largely a thing of the past. I'm not so sure if WinFS will be all that great, but we'll see.
Windows Vista will be no different than the 98 to XP conversion. NTFS users will be able to easily convert their partitions. Again, they will be able to do it even if they don't know what it is exactly. As long as they know it's recommended, they will keep clicking the Next button. You're worrying about something that will clearly never happen, given Microsoft's track record.
The add-on will likely be via Windows Update and extremely simple to apply. People who buy PCs after the add-on is released won't even have to do that. They will just have WinFS.
I also want to touch upon the phrase "idiot windows users" that you used. Saying something like that only serves to make you sound like an idiot. Windows users are largely novices, but you can't expect everyone to be an expert user able to keep up with the quirks of Linux et al. Calling Windows users idiots is like calling people who drive car's with automatic transmissions idiots. Sure, automatics are easier to learn to use, but that doesn't make those drivers idiots.
Now, I could go on to write a whole article bashing Geek Squad, but that would be pointless since we all know they suck and they overcharge.
Re:Now I can search my drive for images? (Score:2, Funny)
Then they'll patent it.
I've had better ideas over lunch. I wish somebody would give me a few million dollars to build one.
Umm (Score:4, Informative)
WinFS [wikipedia.org]
Re:Umm (Score:3, Interesting)
If WinFS could do for WinAMP what BeFS allowed SoundPlay+BIYS to do, I'd be a happy camper. However, I haven't tried XP Media Center, so maybe they did better than BIYS. Who knows?
Re:bleh (Score:5, Funny)
Works for Google.
Re:A Complete And Utter Joke (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Where's the Answer? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree however that it would seem people have been caught with their pants down in regards to WinFS though. The usual sentiment about it among Linux peeps from what I've seen is that it either isn't doable, or that it is, but that it'd be horribly slow.
Methinks a change in attitude is called for, however. This could very well be Bill's answer to the One Ring if he gets it out, which is presumably why Microsoft are trying to get a working release ASAP. Forget the coder bias for a minute here, and think about what the implications of this could be from the perspective of ease-of-use...and then think about what a battle we'd have converting people to Linux if we still don't have it when Microsoft does.
Longhorn was intended to be a Linux killer...but of all the elements I've seen, WinFS is the only one which could truly cause us problems...Especially when you consider how difficult back-engineering compatibility with such an FS would probably be.
As I said, I'm aware WinFS hasn't been taken seriously around here so far...but somebody needs to start to.