Microsoft Axes WinFS, Cancels Beta 2

The lead program manager for WinFS, Quentin Clark, has announced that his product is no more — at least in its current form. Just one week after a slew of WinFS sessions at TechEd, Microsoft has decided not to continue development on the new file system, canceling the expected Beta 2 release. Although the status of WinFS has already changed a number of times, it seems Microsoft has finally given up on once-lofty plans to completely re-architect the way Windows stores files.

The technology, which is based upon Microsoft’s SQL Server platform, was originally slated to ship in Windows Vista, but the feature was cut in 2004. The changed prompted many industry watchers to speculate that WinFS was dead, a victim of delays plaguing the new operating system.

But Microsoft very publicly brought WinFS back to life last August, releasing Beta 1 ahead of PDC 2005 and announcing plans to launch the file system technology as a separate download after the debut of Windows Vista. WinFS was integrated into the WinFX Runtime Components and back-ported to Windows XP. Read more…