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A Virtual Folder is a term that generally denotes an organizing principle for files that is not dependent on their physical location in a Folder . Instead, they are some scripts which coalesce results from some datastore, which may be a database or a custom index, and presents them visually in the format in which folder views are presented. TECHNOLOGY Virtual folders are not a new concept per se. They are a well-established construct in web servers, such as Microsoft's Internet Information Services . Their adoption for simplified file organization certainly precedes the advent of Windows Vista. They provide a means for making it easier for users to find files that are content-related, such as by project, but are not physically colocated in the file system's folder hierarchy. An example of this approach is TaskTracker 's virtual folders, which are integrated in a non-hierarchical file organizer. Virtual folders will be a feature in Microsoft 's upcoming Operating System , Windows Vista . In this case, the virtual folder is a special Folder for which the files contained within are determined by the results of a search query. Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" currently offers very similar functionality with its Smart Folder feature. These folders, essentially saved searches, are updated each time that a change is made in the Filesystem . Virtual folders are not true folders in the filesystem. Instead, exactly like Smart Folders, virtual folders are XML files. However, the formatting for the XML files is different in each OS, and the File Extension for a virtual folder is ".vfolder", while the extension for a Smart Folder is ".savedSearch". Documents cannot be stored in a virtual folder, since its content is based on a search query. If any such attempt is made, the file will be redirected to some other physical folder. IN WINDOWS VISTA , is physically just an XML file.]] Virtual folders were a part of Windows Vista. Any complex search could be saved as a virtual folder. When the virtual folder was accessed, the search would be run and the results would be presented as a folder, containing the files which matched the searched criteria. Files in a virtual folder are not limited to any single physical folder, as is the case with traditional folders, but can be in any location, which need not even be a physical folder but can also be a network share or some custom application datastore like Microsoft Outlook 's Inbox, which has been indexed by the search subsystem. Search, in the context of Windows Vista, is not the slow file search as is the case in Windows XP , but a near-instantaneous one, using a file indexing scheme. In the early development builds of Windows Vista, there were some pre-configured Virtual Folders, for Music, Pictures, Documents and the like, which were used as replacement of their Special Folder counterpart. Windows Vista also supported manual creation of custom virtual folders. To create a virtual folder, a search has to be done through the Windows Search Engine and the results could be put anywhere in the filesystem. The filesystem location had to be traversed to before the virtual folder could be accessed. With Windows Vista build 5308, also known as February 2006 CTP, the implementation of Virtual Folders changed. Microsoft felt that Virtual Folders will be too confusing to the general public and hence they are not being used as the replacement of physical folders, as was the original goal. Unlike in previous versions, where Start Menu icons led to Virtual Folders for Music, Pictures and Documents, build 5308 onwards lead to physical folders of same name, which are exactly like ''My Documents'' and other similar folders in Windows XP. But, Virtual Folders still remain in Windows Vista, in the same incarnation they were before. Just that there are no more pre-configured virtual folders to host a specific kind of files. Also, Virtual Folders have undergone a name change. They are now being called ''Saved Searches'', which are the same XML files which were once Virtual Folders. When these are opened, the search is run and the results are presented in the form of a folder, as was the case with Virtual Folders. The mechanism for creating these also remains the same. |
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