Microsoft announced last year that there were four major parts of Longhorn that will make it worth the upgrade, since Longhorn will not be released for at another year or two, Microsoft thought it better make as many of these available to WinXP system users as possible. WinFS is the latest Longhorn feature to be ported to WinXP. Tom Rizzo, Microsoft’s director of product management for SQL Server said Microsoft is busily back-porting the WinFS file-system technology to Windows XP. The question is now, will there be any reason to upgrade to Longhorn when, or if, it ever sees the light of day?
According to Microsoft Watch .. Back-porting WinFS to Windows XP “could send a signal to customers that there’s really no need to upgrade,” said Robert McLaws, president and chief software architect with Interscape Technologies, the company behind the LonghornBlogs.com Web site. “Microsoft needs to be really solid about explaining their intentions” in order to keep customers from balking, he added.
But such a move is necessary, if Microsoft is serious about WinFS working in end-to-end scenarios, said Michael Cherry, Senior Analyst with the Kirkland, Wash., research firm Directions on Microsoft. “For a file system to work it has to work in a lot of places,” Cherry said. “FAT (File Allocation Table) still lives because it works on so many devices. So if Microsoft wants WinFS to take off and be useful and adopted, then it has to be widely available—work everywhere I want to work with my files (my information).”