MS cancels Vista feature

Microsoft has cancelled one of the most anticipated features in its next Windows operating system, code-named Vista, which is slated for release next year. Microsoft previously planned to ship the WinFS file system shortly after Windows Vista. In a weblog entry on Friday, however, Quentin Clark -- an executive of the project -- wrote that WinFS would not ship separately, and that some of the feature will be included in a later product. Investors considered WinFS the crucial feature that would encourage upgrades to Vista when Microsoft separated the technologies in 2004 in order to complete Vista by 2006, according to Bloomberg. The cancellation marks the latest change involving Windows Vista, which required Microsoft to restructure portions of the operating system and drop some features.

WinFS is designed to change the way certain types of data -- such as photos, emails, and music -- are categorized to simplify searches for related files stored in different programs, according to the report.

"This was the major feature of Windows Vista," said analyst Joe Wilcox of Jupiter Research. "It was part of the operating system and it was an opportunity for developers. Spreading it out into other things that might appear someday is not the same thing."

Portions of the WinFS technology will be rolled into the next release of Microsoft's SQL database server, code-named Katmai, according to Clark.

by MacNN Staff