Comment Feed for Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting (scobleizer on Channel 9)

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

Ethan Tu — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:02:45 GMT

:) exciting ..

The information of the files are stored in a relational database. We can explore and view it by many different format.

For example Blog is only an kind of template, event calendar is only a template, album is only a template and address book is only a template too. I did the same job on MSSQL before. It is only a small step to put it public viewable like a personal webpage. And I believe it can be as easy as to set the folder sharable in the future.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

JimC — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:16:59 GMT

Wow, very exciting stuff here....... I am looking forward to using this system. You did not cover in the video if there is a performance hit, or increase? If this is built on SQL 2005, does it use the Optimizations, Execution plans? Does it associate the files used by each pgm, if so, would it show that if you remove this file it may effect pgm X. Are there Normalization rules for base types?

I see this as "System Normalization", No repetative data....very nice, if devs will use the stores available, you can effectivly have one place to store contacts and 5 or more apps can use it, one changes it and the rest see it dynamicly......very nice...

Also how does this tie into LINQ?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

ernst — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:42:41 GMT

That's all fantastic - if you live in the US :|. Downloading a 250Mb file from Redmond to South Africa will take me approximately a full day, which is of course just not worth it for me....
How about providing two options? A Low- and a High Bandwidth download...?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

eddwo — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 00:45:30 GMT

I'm also interested to see how the Sync stuff will work. I've only installed WinFS on one machine so far so I've yet to try it out. I suppose I could create two WinFS stores and have it sync between them. It would be great to only sync the Index between machines and not the actual files. I don't necessarily want copies of every file on each machine, but I do want to be able to organise and find things easily from each machine. Perhaps if I try to access a file from the store, where the actual file is on another machine that is unavailable it should tell me, "please switch on/locate/connect to machine: myothermachine" to access this file. What I really want to see are better home backup devices, a simple file server with a raid array that can sit in a cupboard and require minimal maintenance. I should be able to nominate that device as the master sync peer, so the system will make sure that every file is synced with that one, and that becomes the default store location when it is accessible. Files are only cached to my local machine when they are accessed recently/frequently. Any file I create on my local machine should end up on the server.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

n4cer — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 03:39:08 GMT

amg55nj wrote:
How do I download the video? I don't see a download link anywhere? Thanks.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/3/0/330bddc3-d61e-46f2-b0eb-1ff358a80027/new_winfs_returns_2005.wmv

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

FyinsFlip — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 18:14:09 GMT

Where can we as developers find information to start using beta 1 in development code... if we aren't MSDN subscribers?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

amg55nj — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 03:52:13 GMT

How do I download the video? I don't see a download link anywhere? Thanks.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

ervwalter — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 01:35:29 GMT

What I wonder about and wish we could hear more about is the "network storage" story. In my role as a consumer, concider that I have 3-5 PCs at home (including media center, etc). Today, I have a network file server that holds all of the data for my family (photos, music, documents, email, etc).

In the WinFS world, how does that work? I love the idea of WinFS and the capabilities that it provides, but it sounds very "local". I don't want "local" data. When I download some photos off my camera, I don't want it to live only on the workstation I am sitting at. I want to see it on my Media Center; I want my wife's PC to see it, etc. Now, I understand that the data in WinFS is visible to the network as SMB, but SMB loses the "cool" part of WinFS--things are back to just being files.

I get the impression that there is some kind of Sync capabilites to keep multiple PCs synchronized, but that sounds like a klunky solution to the problem. I don't want copies of everything everywhere. Set asside the fact that it is probably not instantaneous synchronization. I don't want to have to put 1TB hard drives on all my PCs just so that they can all have local copies of my music, photos, documents, etc with the rich relationships intact.

I guess I'd like to see or hear that the richness of WinFS will be available in some model where the data "lives" on some server somewhere but where the richness, relationships, metadata are all available to clients that have WinFS (and not via a product that ships 3 years after "client" WinFS).

Am I dreaming?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

alexd — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:03:30 GMT

Beer28 wrote:
The whole directory structure is filled from sql data. And all those relationships they showed in the video are just different row and column joins from the file metadata in SQL presented through the virtual file system driver for WinFS. That's how I understand it, and I may be wrong.

On linux you can also provide "fake" directory listings and file listings to a client of the fs driver, so you could do the same thing.

Not exactly. There are two manners of accessing data in WinFS. One is via the Win32 CreateFile/OpenFile APIs (and their managed counterparts). These APIs allow you to double-click files within WinFS and have them open in Word, Photoshop, etc. However, this API only gives you what you get in Win32... file streams.

However, we have built a set of managed APIs that expose WinFS data as CLR objects with relationships, etc. This API is what the applications you saw (LifeJournal, StoreSpy) work against to create and navigate relationships.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

AndyC — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:11:36 GMT

Beer, yes WinFS sits on top of NTFS at the moment because it currently makes more sense for it to do so (performance, compatability, tried and tested resiliance etc) but that doesn't necessarily always have to be the case.

After all, SQL Server 2000 can already use raw partitions for storing databases and it's not that big a step from there to storing files directly in the database rather than externally on a file system.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

klaus.aschenbrenner@csharp.at — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 20:59:08 GMT

Does someone know the model of this white keyboard we saw in the video? I like it and I want to get it!!!

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

Neville — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:42:39 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

Neville, the sql object provider layer is nice, but it's just a layer right?
You could provide the same sql object provider with MySQL and mono or with C++ on linux.

The Win32 file api is just a layer to a binary store (NTFS) too. My point isn't that layers can't be added to interoperate. My point is that MS is developing the WinFX/WinFS api and (I speculate) deprecating the Win32 file api. Are they right to? Will it work? Hell, I don't know. I used to think Hans Reiser was the best bet for improved FS semantics, and MS was spinning its wheels, now I'm not so sure.

The Win32 file api has a fixed schema for the objects its contains: Directory, File, Attributes. Further classification is value dependent, not type dependent.

BeFS was like this too. BDirectory, BFile, and a fixed set of attribute types (int, string, ...)
So to determine further classification BeOS had to provide a FileTypes service that told you that BFiles which had a TYPE attribute with value text/rfc822 had a Sender attribute of type string.

Mac OS seems to be going down the BeFS route (see Ars Technica), but with the UTI improvement.

ReiserFS too to some extent although the FS Plugins and the overall vision adds significantly more to the mix.

The WinFS api on the other hand looks to be designed to have a dynamic and discoverable schema. And the UI (GUI and CLI) will depend on that fact. Type information is provided in the same way as for any CLR object. Objects in the store can be manipulated like any other CLR object.

Beer28 wrote:
What interests me most is that it's just a virtual file system that points to data on the ntfs volume. So WinFS, isn't really a FS at all.

I think its fairly clear from the video that there will be some pretty important stuff in WinFS Stores that have no existence outside the database. Like Contact objects.

I can see the following being possible in Monad...

MSH C:\> new-drive -name Contacts -Provider WinFS -root "\\Computer\DefaultStore\Users\JoeBloggs\Contacts"
MSH C:\> set-location Contacts:\
MSH Contacts:\>get-childitem

Name Phone
------- --------
Jack 555 1234
Jill 555 5678

and in CMD...

C:\> net use E: \\Computer\DefaultStore\Users\JoeBloggs\Contacts
C:\> e:
E:\> dir /b

E:\Jack.mscontact
E:\Jill.mscontact

but if you tried to find Jack.mscontact on any Hard Disk, the closest you would come is something like C:\Users\JoeBloggs\DefaultStore.sql - The SQL Server Database containing Joe's Default Store.

On the other hand the Word 2000 document \\Computer\DefaultStore\Users\JoeBloggs\All Documents\Report.doc

also exists as C:\Users\JoeBloggs\Documents\Report.doc

But I think Microsoft sees that as the legacy case. They envision user files in the store only, with legacy access through the SMB interface.

Why do it? I might be wrong, but I think if you get rid of the NTFS write through you get rid of File/Save. And a lot of other FS stuff. I think they looked at what was on peoples disks and said, "There are more databases than hierarchies".

I think Hans Reiser is looking to improve the Unix File System while staying true to its "Everything Is A File" philosophy.

In contrast I think the guys developing WinFS are database guys. They didn't drink the EIAF kool aid. They are not building a database add on to NTFS, or an object layer over NTFS, or a search index, or the new improved windows file system. I think they are making an object database the heart of how user data is stored on windows systems. And it works well enough right now to stick up on MSDN.

We are not in Kansas anymore.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

mbazzoni — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:27:32 GMT

What is the best way to get more information about the goings on of this Beta? Is there one place that the Beta team is looking to get more information from testers?

I have posted up some prelims of my testing on my Blog, but thought there may be a need to contact them more directly. Since there are a couple different blogs, should we use the WinFS team blog for comments?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

Augusto — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:08:34 GMT

bundyum wrote:

samdruk,

i would be interested to hear your response to what hans reiser said about win fs on slashdot:

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=160472&cid=13433454

I'd also like to see what comments samdruk has wrt Reiser's comments. I hadn't heard of Reiser before but I went to his site and boy does this guy know his stuff! I'd be great if MS could provide information about WinFS at the detailed level Reiser does for his filesystem.

Anyways, any comments in response to that slashdot post would be great! :-)

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

eddwo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:11:27 GMT

Great video. Lots of good explainations and demonstrations. I can't wait to try it out. Looks like I'll have to reshuffle my PDC schedule to fit in some WinFS sessions.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

moofish — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:12:52 GMT

so where can i download it from, i tried msdn but can't find it.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

Lazycoder2 — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:00:36 GMT

scobleizer wrote:

Better security.

IMO, better security should never be a reason to PAY for an upgrade. I'm more interested in the other reasons, my security is fine. Hardware firewall, software firewall, A/V, A/S, etc...

When's PDC? Two more weeks? Three weeks? I'm not going, but it'll be interesting to see what you've been "anti-hyping" for months now. ;)

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

Lazycoder2 — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:51:19 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

That's actually not true. BSD and Linux actually keep the config files in folders prefixed with a . in the user's local dir ~/.config

The registry was first used to point to specific dll's, eventually people started storing application specific data in it. Which is when the problems started. IMO. Linux/Unix and OS X (I think, I 'm not sure about OS X) require your shared libs to be in the path. Which is a little easier (e.g. no real DLL hell) but you have to hope that an application you want to use was compiled against the version of the lib you have.

That being said, it's nice to have everything in your /home/~user dir. When I upgraded to OS X 10.4, I just zipped up my home dir and copied over to a network drive.

Beer28 wrote:

As is the case with the .so's not facing dll hell due to the version being in the file name. The low tech solution on unix systems is actually much more elegant.

As someone who spent two days hunting down dependancy issues when trying to install the Ruby on Rails framework under Ubuntu Linux, I'd respectfully disagree with you on this point. A lot of time the archive file containing the source for a lib will contain a version # in it's name, but the binary ends up being called the same name as any other version and there isn't any easy way to determine which version you've got. If there is, tell me about it.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

j0217995 — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:43:55 GMT

Isn't part of the charm of Channel9 the shaky video and the informal attitude that everyone has during the interveiw?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

scobleizer — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:32:30 GMT

ankurbulsara wrote:
Is it possible to just go line-in into the monitor and edit the movie such that it switches view when appropriate?

It's possible, but not very probable. See, I'm getting access to teams where others aren't because I don't take much of their time. In fact, with Steve Ballmer I had only 10 minutes.

Every system at Microsoft is different, too, so getting it setup properly would be a real pain.

Also, my videos are very conversational and not very demo centric. Plus, I'm not doing much editing (I hate editing, to tell you the truth). Capturing the screen and then switching back and forth would require a lot of editing.

Also, even if I captured the screen, if I down sampled to 500kbps it'd still be blurry. In fact, it'd be far worse because most capturing tools only let you capture the whole screen and don't let you zoom in on the part of the screen (and the ones that do allow you to zoom require you to pay attention to their software, rather than to do an interview. It's hard enough to pay attention to a camera while trying to think about the next question you should ask.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

scobleizer — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:24:28 GMT

rjdohnert wrote:
if you guys keep offering Windows Vista features for Windows XP, whats the incentive to upgrade to Windows Vista?

Better security. Better user interface. Better performance. More features. Better applications. Shall I go on? Let's talk after the PDC since a good percentage of Windows Vista will be discussed there.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

Eduardo — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:47:23 GMT

The video download is down (at least here).

One more thing: I'm trying to start testing and learning all the new stuff, but don't find a good point to get started. I mean, don't you have some example app, like pet shop or something, where I can start learning?

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

ensoft — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:30:38 GMT

Great vid!

The only thing I'd change is having some kind of "direct feed" from the screen, where you record both the live video of the guy + have another feed recording the VGA/DVI output from the demo machine. Keep it running through the entire presentation, then edit them together in an edit session...

hope that doesnt introduce TOO much extra work, but the benefits will be better because as you switch back and forth from Video to "Demo" or code sampling, the code video will be much better (and immune to the scoble caffeine hand twitching and zooming) ;)

Anyways, this is awesome technology. I've been looking forward to WinFS info for a while, going so far as to try to model my current project types to mimic winfs types (Contact, Person, Org) and so forth.

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

rjdohnert — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:11:03 GMT

I thougnt he looked more like Serial Killer from the movie "Hackers"

NeoTOM wrote:
He looks like a Quentin.

BA DUM PSHH!

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

JChung2006 — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:24:26 GMT

It was great to see WinFS in action. Thanks for the video, C9!

IMHO, calling it a "file system" is really doing it a disservice even if ultimately becoming Windows' next file system is its most important near-term future goal.

Yes, I know its current incarnation is as a layer on top of NTFS, but in the future, that may not be the case. From the comments they made about WinFS in the video, they chose NTFS because it was easier to use a robust, mature file system like NTFS to build the "file system" bits of WinFS than to build a new one from scratch.

Likewise, SQL Server 2005 may not be the database engine that drives WinFS in the future; one of Hans Reiser's beefs about WinFS is that it uses a relational model, which he feels isn't appropriate for a filesystem. Personally, I think Reiser's right but for a different reason than he thinks. I'm less concerned about the suitability of the relational model for modeling filesystem data and more concerned about the "impedance mismatch" of object-oriented and relational database models, something that has been a thorn in the side of O/R and OODB models for a very long time. MS has a lot of very bright people in their employ; maybe they'll figure out something.

Anyway, as with NTFS, MS is using SQL Server 2005 because it was easier to use a robust, mature database like SQL Server than to build a new object-relational or object-oriented database from scratch. The flip side is that the next generations of WinFS will have to support legacy artifacts of having its first generation be an NTFS-based, SQL Server-based file system, but I guess they figured they'd rather cross that bridge when they get to it than to release something in the early-mid 2010's.

It'll be interesting to see what the open source guys come up with after WinFS comes out, though I wonder if they will be as hamstrung by their UNIX legacy as Microsoft is by their NT/SQL Server legacies. Reiser's comments about his file system's UNIX dependencies suggests that it will be hampered by that legacy... but not forever. What MS is trying to do with WinFS could be bigger and more powerful than UNIX, NT, and SQL Server.

Let's not forget Google, who's coming at this from their own angle (the power of search; the Internet as the filesystem).