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Windows Vista is in sync with your files

Robert Vamosi CNET

Published: 01 Feb 2007

File sharing has both a good use and a questionable use. For businesses, the ability to access files remotely and also to collaborate on files easily is a good use. For businesses concerned about digital rights management, the ability to share copyrighted material without control is a bad use. Deep within Windows Vista, Microsoft hopes to be able to address both of these issues.

One of the four layers of the .NET Framework 3 within Windows Vista is the Windows Communications Foundation (WCF), formerly known as Indigo. Similar to the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which handles all the graphical elements within Windows Vista, WCF is specifically tasked with handling all the communications elements — from basic networking to syncing files and folders with local mobile devices or remote servers. In Windows Home Premium, WCF can be found in the Sync Center, Windows Meeting Space and within basic file- and folder-sharing capabilities within Windows Explorer. In Windows Business, you'll find the same features plus Offline files and folders, Roaming User Profiles and Folder Redirection.

By default, all but password-protected sharing is turned off within Windows Vista. Home users enable and then limit what is shared among users on the same machine by adding or removing files from the new Public folder space. By combining digital rights management features within Office 2007 with group policy available in Windows Vista Business, businesses can limit who has access to share specific files and what permissions they also might need to update, copy or even print the information. It's a sophisticated approach to what might otherwise seem a very simple problem. Now, instead of saying remote users have access to this drive or this file folder, you can restrict what is shared down to a specific file, and even then restrict how the user ultimately views or uses that file.

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So if you upgrade to XP SP3 you can't uninstall Internet Explorer, I'm quite sure I'm having a Deja-vu feeling about MS preventing people from uninstalling Internet Explorer in other Windows products.