Microsoft News Tracker

Part 1 of Paul Thurrott’s comparison is here. He had earlier done a review of Vista Beta 1. Yardena Arar also has a Beta 1 review in PC World.

Mary Jo Foley follows up on today’s WinFS Beta 1 story with an interview with Quentin Clark, director of program management for WinFS:

Clark said Microsoft still is not committing to a final ship date or delivery mechanism for WinFS. But it will not be part of Vista when it ships next year.
…
There is no technology dependency between WinFS and other Vista or Longhorn Server subsystems, Clark said.
…
There is also a strategy connection between WinFS and Windows Workflow Foundation, the workflow-automation subsystem that Microsoft is planning to build into future iterations of Windows, starting with Longhorn Server. Windows Workflow Foundation is the technology formerly known as WinOE (and later, Windows Workflow Services).
…
Clark also characterized as a “strategy conection” the link between Microsoft Business Framework (MBF) and WinFS.

More by following the link.

Elizabeth Montalbano of IDG got a slightly different story for PC World:

WinFS will not be a part of the next version of Windows, Windows Vista, when it ships at the end of next year, but will be available to the operating system as an add-on release sometime in 2007, says Quentin Clark, director of program management for WinFS at Microsoft.

Barbara Darrow at CRN also interviewed Clark:

Clark said not to expect any more Community Technical Previews (CTPs) or beta releases of WinFS between PDC 2005 and next year.

More links: WinFS Developer Center and Channel 9 video.

Ingo Rammer and Richard Turner - Performance of ASP.NET Web Services, Enterprise Services, and .NET Remoting

Cameron Sturdevant at eWeek:

IBM and Microsoft Corp., along with a small fleet of partners, will submit in September three new security specifications to OASIS: WS-SecurityPolicy, WS-SecureConversation and WS-Trust.

Max Feingold - New versions of the WS-Transaction specifications. They include WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, and WS-BusinessActivity.

Also a new version of the WS-Management specification was published.

Ondrej Hrebicek - Testing WS-ReliableMessaging Interoperability

Mike Ricciuti at CNET - New Windows file system enters testing:

Microsoft on Monday posted the first test version of a new Windows file system well ahead of its expected debut.

The company made the test version of the file system, called WinFS, available to subscribers to its Microsoft Developer Network service. The test release was unexpected. Microsoft has repeatedly said that the WinFS code wouldn’t debut until sometime next year.

It’s there and according to the docs:

“WinFS” Beta 1 requires Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed. “WinFS” Beta 1 will install on other editions of Windows XP such as Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition, but is only supported on Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition.

Note:
“WinFS” Beta 1 installations on Windows XP Home Edition only provide local access to “WinFS”. Remote access components of “WinFS” such as “WinFS” Sync are not supported when “WinFS” is installed on Windows XP Home Edition.

You also need the Beta 2 version of Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.

Also today, Mary Jo Foley speculated on a surprise beta and discusses the recent history of WinFS. For ancient history, you have to go back to Cairo.

Update: Tom Rizzo provides some background and points to a new WinFS blog.

Anandtech points to a report at Laptop Logic that Samsung 19-Inch “Laptop” Sighted:

We’ve heard rumors that Dell is considering a 19″ laptop, and perhaps they’re going to buy it from Samsung, but regardless of who makes this it this sure is one BEAST of a machine.
…
Wait, you mean this thing isn’t just a desktop with a keyboard that will be uncomfortable to type on?

When’s the 23″ version?