"All promised features were cut from Vista." This is a commonly heard complaint about Windows Vista on the internet. While there certainly is a lot to complain about when it comes to Windows Vista, the mythical 'cancelled features' certainly is not one of them. Let me explain why.

I often hear this complaint whenever we post a story regarding Vista on OSNews - or any other story for that matter. "All promised features were pulled from Vista and Bill Gates eats babies." While I can certainly attest that babies do in fact taste great, I often counter this argument by a simple, but effective question: "Which features, exactly, have been cut from Windows Vista?" This is usually about the time when the crickets start chirping, or, when I get accused of being a Microsoft fanboy (they pay for my Aston Martin, you see).

Seriously now, usually the replies to that question do not go beyond the mention of "WinFS". And WinFS really is about the only significant promised feature that has been cut from Windows Vista. People who have used WinFS, such as myself, in the early Longhorn builds also know why Microsoft more or less abandoned the WinFS project: it was slow. And I am not talking slow-like-honey, but more like slow-not-moving-at-all. It was a pain to use, it did not work, and at that time the first thing you did when you were testing Longhorn builds was turn off WinFS (and the sidebar, which had a huge memory leak). When Microsoft announced, in 2004, that WinFS would not be part of Windows Vista, it only made sense to me.