When Microsoft announced a year ago that it had decided to rip the next-generation Windows File System (WinFS) from Longhorn, many company watchers wrote off the feature as little more than vaporware.

But it seems Microsoft didn't simply shelve WinFS. According to sources close to the company, Microsoft just last week put the finishing touches on the first beta release of WinFS. And the company is moving ahead with plans to back-port the WinFS technology to Windows XP, the same way that it decided to do with the Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo) and Windows Presentation Foundation (Avalon) Windows subsystems.

On August 27 last year, company officials acknowledged that WinFS would fail to make it into either Longhorn client (now known as Windows Vista), due in 2006, or Longhorn Server, due in 2007. Instead, officials said, the new plan was to make Beta 1 of WinFS available to developers around the same time that Vista shipped.

Originally touted by Microsoft top brass as the crux of Longhorn/Vista, WinFS was set to be a platform for organizing, searching for and sharing all kinds of data and information. Microsoft described WinFS as a revolutionary storage platform that would include schemas for everything from images and documents, to people, tasks and events.

Now, after clamming up about WinFS for a year, it sounds like Microsoft might be ready to talk about WinFS again.

Microsoft could make early WinFS bits available in some form as soon as the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC), slated for mid-September in Los Angeles, according to sources. Microsoft officials have said to expect the company to provide an updated release of the Vista code in the form of some kind of post-Beta-1 release, at the confab, but have declined to comment on what WinFS-related code developers can expect to receive there.

While Microsoft internally christened the recently competed internal WinFS build as "Beta 1," according to one partner, it's not clear what the company will dub any kind of WinFS build that might be distributed at the PDC. One source close to the company said he'd expect it to be a "technology preview," or alpha, build at best. Microsoft also might opt to release the first cut of WinFS as a software-development kit of some kind, the source, who requested anonymity, added.

It's also not clear how Microsoft intends to distribute the final WinFS code. Earlier this year, company officials downplayed reports that Microsoft intended to back-port the WinFS code to older versions of Windows. But according to one source, who asked not to be named, Microsoft has decided to release a version of WinFS for Windows XP and possibly on Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft officials declined again last week to comment on the company's WinFS plans.

According to the PDC docket, there are four WinFS-related sessions slated for the upcoming PDC. One is entitled "WinFS: Future Directions for Using WinFS As Your Application Store." Another is aimed at developers interested in "building data-centric applications using Avalon and Windows Forms."

Microsoft needs to start talking up now its vision for WinFS because the workflow-automation technology that is slated to be built into pending releases of Windows, said another partner with ties to the Redmond software vendor,

That workflow technology, now known internally as Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF), has gone by a couple of different code names in its recent history. First, it was known as WinOE. Then, it was dubbed Windows Workflow Services.

Earlier this year, Microsoft executives told Microsoft Watch that Windows Workflow Services were "platform-level services" that Microsoft is planning to build into Windows. Longhorn Server is the version of Windows in which they are expected to debut, executives said. They also will be built into other Microsoft servers, including BizTalk Server and SharePoint Portal Server, at some point in the future, company executives said.

According to sources, Windows Workflow Foundation will include a programming model and set of related developer tools, which Microsoft will encourage developers to use in writing workflow applications that will run on future versions of Windows.

WinFS needs to work on both Windows client and Windows server, said another source, who requested anonymity. "That is because few documents live there entire life on the client. They are stored on servers, and there are server services, such as rights management that have to interact with documents. So it has to work end-to-end for the documents life cycle."

(This is an updated version of an article which appeared in the August 24, 2005, issue of the Microsoft Watch newsletter. Want to see what other Microsoft news nuggets you might have missed? Sign up today for a free two-week trial subscription to Microsoft Watch.)