Well - it seems that WinFS returned to the undead for at least another 1-2 operating system releases: Quentin Clark writes in the WinFS group blog, that WinFS is canceled for Vista and XP. They are now moving those parts that are stable enough for productization into SQL server and ADO.NET.

This article effectively ends Microsoft's second push to move to a relational file system. The infamous Cairo OO-OS in 1991 that was supposed to be built on NT, and then WinFS, as one of the pillars of Longhorn in 2002.

My guess is that this whole thing will be completely tabled until after Windows Vienna ships - this would probably make it 2010 until it comes up, add 5-10 years development efforts, so you might have a chance seeing this by 2015.

Well, if Microsoft wants to update their NTFS file system, they can certainly take a look at Solaris' ZFS. Maybe ... ahh, I am dreaming now.