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WinFS is Microsoft's new Relational File System, and the company released a Beta 1 edition of the software to members of the Microsoft Developer Network. Originally planned for a Windows Vista release, the software runs on Windows XP. A forthcomming Beta 2 release should work on the beta releases of Vista.

The driving goal behind WinFS is a new filing system paridgm: allow a single file system to store documents such as email messages, your scanned photos, music, and databases in a common file format that other programs could access more quickly without a conversion utility. Applications coded to work with WinFS would feel like a database access: type in a key (a common search string, or someone's name), and all of the documents associated with that key will be called up for your selection.

Apple Computer tried to do something like this ten years ago with a project called OpenDoc. The document type would be the same, and programmers were encouraged to develop applets to work with that document's data, allowing programmer flexibility on how they wanted the user to interact with the data. OpenDoc never took off -- in it's day it was a lot of code on computers that were not fast enough to handle it. A beautiful concept, but I think it failed due to performance fallbacks.

Looking at the new format, I am not certain that I like it. While it may make for easier data access, it also could be a great way for a virus to attack your system, searching for things like contact lists and financial information, and be able to gather that data quickly, and export it off the box into the thief's hands.

Looks like I'll have to find a beta of this and preview it. Too soon to see what kinds of security will be out there to help this software along.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by collar

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A short, practical update and clarification tied to the original posts by and .

WinFS as a standalone product was abandoned in mid‑2006; Microsoft decided to “productize” mature WinFS technologies into the data platform (ADO.NET / the Entity model) and SQL Server rather than ship a separate relational file store. (learn.microsoft.com)

Many of the ideas survived as components and APIs rather than a single filesystem: the Entity/ADO.NET work, SQL Server filestream/unstructured-data features, and improvements to Windows’ indexing/property infrastructure and shell search made the WinFS vision available in other forms (for developers and for the OS search experience). Those changes are why some WinFS concepts show up in EF/ADO.NET and in Vista/Windows Search features instead of as a new on‑disk file system. (learn.microsoft.com)

On the security point raised by : the concern was legitimate in principle because metadata/indexing increases the surface area for fast, content‑oriented discovery. Microsoft’s search/index components store metadata and (optionally) file contents in an indexed database and expose controls to limit what gets indexed; the platform also excludes some protected content types (for example IRM‑protected files) and exposes Indexing Options for modifying scope. Practical mitigations implemented or available to administrators include excluding sensitive folders from the index (Indexing Options → Modify), switching specific extensions to “Index properties only” in Advanced → File Types, using file‑level or full‑disk encryption (EFS / BitLocker) for sensitive data, and applying least‑privilege and up‑to‑date anti‑malware controls. (devblogs.microsoft.com)

Practical takeaway for developers and admins: treat metadata services like any shared service—enforce access control at the API level, separate sensitive content into encrypted stores, and prefer incremental, auditable services (database-backed metadata + ACLs or OS search APIs/property handlers) instead of assuming a transparent global store is safe by default. The WinFS story is best read as useful research and reusable components rather than a shipped “relational file system.” (blog.jonudell.net)

Member Avatar for collar

Well,

I can say WinFS is a really interesting filesystem. I've searched to find more info about it and came upon this information source http://www.ntfs.com/ Theres plenty of useful data on this subject there. If you wish, you can give it a look too.

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