Have you tested WinFS?

NEW DELHI: Software giant Microsoft has made Beta 1 of its much talked about relational file system, WinFS available at its Microsoft Developer Network service for developers to test. Said an online report.

WinFS was earlier supposed to be an integral part of Microsoft's next-generation operating system Longhorn (now, Windows Vista), but was subsequently dropped-out from it to meet the operating system's release timeline.

Following the developer feedback WinFS has been tweaked to make it work with Windows version as low as XP. According to Microsoft, this tool will enable easier file searching on local as well as network PCs across diverse networks.

A post on MSDN reads, "WinFS bridges the gap between file systems and databases and provides a unified, rich programming platform for all data: structured, semi-structured, and unstructured."






Microsoft has urged developers to use the next-gen file system and submit their feedback on various newsgroups to let them know what they are doing right and what they need to change. The sole reason behind delivering this Beta at an early stage is to receive as much feedback as possible from the developer community, which would help Microsoft to deliver a foolproof, world-class file system.

WinFS Beta 1 can be downloaded from here.