14 DAY TRIAL // Digging deep enough under the hood of early development milestone of Windows 8, and additional hidden examples of the platform’s evolution will be unveiled. Case in point: Protogon. There’s really no telling at this point in time what Protogon is exactly, what new capabilities it brings to the table or whether it will have a major or minor impact for Windows vNext users.
Windows 8 is currently still in Milestone 3, but the software giant is reportedly working to move the development process to the next stage soon. The company is said to be on track for wrapping up Windows 8 M3 by the end of June 2011, and also starting focusing entirely on the coding work on the Beta Build this month.
In spite of Windows 8’s proximity to the Beta milestone, Microsoft continues to keep mum on the next major iteration of Windows, although some extra details are expected this week with the D9 and Computex conferences in full swing.
Protogon is mentioned in an IT World article, with Mary Jo Foley taking a closer look at the find.
It appears that Windows 8 includes a new file system, or at least a subsystem, dubbed Protogon. It’s unclear whether the moniker is the actual label for a new Windows 8 feature, or it’s just a codename.
The NT Protogon FS driver is the only detail related to the evolution of the file system in Windows 8. And in this regard, it seems that Microsoft might be working on the evolution of NTFS.
As many of you know, NTFS superseded FAT, and is now the standard for all Windows NT releases, including Windows 7.
However, early adopters that were also familiar with the development of Longhorn, the true successor of Windows XP (not what ended up being Windows Vista), already know that the software giant tried to produce a replacement for the New Technology File System.
The new file system of Longhorn was dubbed called WinFS (Windows Future Storage), and it was based on concepts from Microsoft’s data platform, SQL Server.
With Protogon also reportedly sporting database-like functionality, I cannot help but wonder whether Microsoft is working to revive WinFS (Windows Future Storage), introducing the result into Windows 8 under the Protogon label.
And let’s be fair, NTFS has long passed its glory days, as far as I’m concerned, it’s about time that the file system in Windows be overhauled and taken to the next level.